


I'm tumbling down a hill. Please catch me.

by MsPeppernose



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: AU, Anal Sex, Biphobia, Blowjobs, Homophobia, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Phone Sex, Rimming, Voyeurism, handjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-03-22 20:37:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 66,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3742774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsPeppernose/pseuds/MsPeppernose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mikey Way runs a comic book store with his brother in New Jersey. Pete Wentz plays bass in Fall Out Boy. They meet in Jersey and Mikey attempts to navigate his way though a relationship with someone who lives their life in the spotlight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been my lifeline while I've been unemployed. There's a lot going into it.  
> It started off as a tiny one shot and has grown so many legs and arms and a head.
> 
> Unbetad as ever. Please feel free to point out my errors. 
> 
> First Chapter is pretty Gen but after that it will get fairly E. You've been warned.
> 
> Enjoy <3

Mikey thinks he’s being fairly patient. He stands at the bar and sips his soda. Slowly. He needs to drag it out. Mikey’s half clock watching and half watching Frank and Jamia as they talk and Frank tries desperately to apologise to her for whatever stupid thing he did. They’ve had a massive blow out, and while Mikey didn’t ask for the exact details of the row, he knows enough that Frank slept on his sofa last night so it must have been bad. The conversation seems to be going in circles as they get close and Jamia smiles sweetly, and then something happens and she’s scowling at him or throwing her hand in the air at him. Then it starts again as he gets into her good books again. 

Rinse repeat.

It’s entertaining to watch. Or at least, it was for the first half hour. Now Mikey wants to leave, though he can’t go until he knows either Jamia is sick of Frank for the night and returns to Mikey’s sofa, or that he’s actually going home with her.

He knows that Frank will get her to forgive him, he always does, but it may not be this evening. So Mikey is waiting for a signal that he can leave the bar, and that his best friend duties are done for tonight.

The bar is busy enough. It’s a dive bar, but a relatively nice one in comparison to some of the ones that Jersey offers, and definitely nicer than some that Mikey and Frank have frequented on nights out. It’s more of an alternative bar, cosy and comfortable, and a nice neutral ground for Jamia to kick Frank’s ass in.

He’s lost in thought as he sees Frank lean in and press a small kiss to Jamia’s lips and then another to her cheek as she smiles. 

Mikey’s standing with his back against the bar when he hears a voice, close to his ear. “Dude, are you staring at that couple kissing? Because some people don’t like that.”

Mikey cocks an eyebrow. He’s not sure whether he’s in a good enough mood to play along with a stranger. Though after being so bored for the last while, maybe talking to someone, anyone, is okay. He turns his head to survey who spoke to him and is met with deep brown eyes that sparkle even in the poor light. 

“He’s a friend of mine,” Mikey says, and the guy smiles. He’s pretty cute, shorter than Mikey, dressed in skinny jeans, battered high top sneakers and a heavy metal shirt with the sleeves cut off. 

“So you know he likes people watching him make out?” the guys offers, and Mikey can’t help but smile back this time.  
“That’s his girlfriend. They had a big fight. He’s trying to win her back. I’m basically here until he either gets slapped in the face or he goes home with her. I’m waiting to see which one it is.”  
“Wingman,” the guy concludes.  
“Kind of. I guess. I know she’ll take him back. They’re disgustingly in love. Just might not be tonight.”  
“So you gotta camp out at the bar until you know how your night is going to go. And then what?” 

Mikey looks into the stranger’s chocolate brown eyes and considers his option once again. “If she gives him a smack in the face I console his sorry ass, and he sleeps on my sofa.”

“And if she takes him back? ‘Cause they’re looking pretty cosy.” Mikey glances back over to where Frank and Jamia are sitting and they’re sitting very close together. Frank says something in her ear and she giggles. Her hand is on his thigh and his arm is around his shoulders. It looks as though they made up. For now at least.

“Then I get to go home,” Mikey says. That’s all he wanted for this evening anyway, to sit at home with his cat and have a quiet night. 

“Boring,” the guy says. Mikey eyes him. He knows the guy is probably trying to be friendly, or maybe even flirt, but saying boring like it’s a bad thing is not the way to get into Mikey’s good books this evening. Boring sounds like a great plan. He’s had a long day.

“Yeah, I’m okay with boring today actually.” Mikey turns around so that he’s leaning over the bar, the wooden edge digging into his ribs, and the guy switches position too. If Frank and Jamia are back to making kissy faces at each other, Mikey plans on leaving after he finishes his soda.  
“So, are you a local?” the guy says, obviously not put off by Mikey turning away from him. Mikey looks at him and rolls his eyes.  
“Dude, is that the same as ‘do you come here often’ cos that’s lame.” The guy laughs. It’s a genuine laugh, and when he does, he gets these little crinkles around his eyes that Mikey would think are cute if he were in a better mood.  
“Yeah, I guess that’s lame. Though are you? I’m not. I’m just in town until tomorrow.”  
“Yeah?” Mikey is half wanting to talk to him now, he seems nice. He’s friendly at least. And not a creepy bar fly.  
“Yeah, I’m in a band. We played last night and I move on tomorrow.”  
“So you’re just enjoying the local New Jersey nightlife?”

“Something like that. I-“ the guy cuts himself off as both he and Mikey hear raised voices from behind them. Mikey looks over his shoulder and Jamia is back to throwing her hand in the air and glaring at Frank. Frank is an idiot. Maybe Mikey won’t be leaving just yet after all.

The guy makes a face. “You sure they’re in love?”  
“Totally. I don’t know what Frank did. But god, he better fix it.”  
“Looks like you’re stuck with me for a while,” the guy says and smiles again so those little crinkles reappear. Mikey smiles back. He can conceded that chatting to a cute guy at the bar is better than staring into space while Frank gets yelled at. “Let me get you a drink?” He nods towards the last inch of Mikey’s now warm and flat soda and Mikey nods.

“Thanks. Just a soda. I’m Mikey, by the way.”  
“Pete.”

While Pete is getting the attention of the bartender and ordering drinks, Frank comes up beside Mikey.

“Dude,” is all Mikey says with a small smile that he hopes breaks the tension. Frank looks exhausted.

“I know. I know,” Frank says and shakes his head. “I think we are half way made up. But we’re gonna take off, okay?” Mikey hadn’t really considered that an option - that they wouldn’t really make up, but leave together anyway – but it makes sense. Frank nods in the direction of Pete who is handing over a crumpled note to the bar tender. “You made a friend?” Frank tilts his head and squints. “Isn’t he that guy from that band? He looks like him anyway. Look, I gotta go or Jamia’s gonna leave without me and then I’m done for. Thanks for hanging out in case I needed you. I owe you.” 

Frank leaves with a squeeze to Mikey’s shoulder just as Pete arrives back with their two drinks. Mikey turns to look at him leave. Frank slips his hand into Jamia’s and she lets him. Mikey knows that by the time they get home all will be well in their world again.

“Are they gone? Did they make up?” Pete asks.  
“Not fully made up, but I think Frank is back in her good books again.”  
“So do you have to leave now? Or can you stay?” Pete asks, and his eyes are wide. Mikey would guess he looks almost hopeful. That had been Mikey’s plan; to go when Frank left. But he has a brand new soda to drink now, and someone nice to talk to, so maybe could stay a little while.

“I guess I can stay for a bit to drink my soda,” he says and drums his fingers against the glass. 

It turns out that Pete and Mikey have a lot in common. They talk for quite a while and Mikey doesn’t even notice that his soda is empty until Pete catches the bar tender’s eye and orders them another round. When Mikey asks Pete who he’s here with he points to a bunch of guys sitting in the corner who holler over at Pete with thumbs up until Pete rolls his eyes at them. Conversation eventually turns to music.

“Hey, so what band did you say you’re in? You played in Jersey last night?”  
“Yeah. We’re called Fall Out Boy?” It comes out almost like a question, like he’s not sure Mikey has heard of them. Mikey has heard of them. 

“Oh.” He’s surprised, but amused. “Frank thought he recognised you. Little did I know, when I was killing time watching my friend get balled out by his girlfriend, I was in fact talking to an actual rockstar.”

Pete grimaces and then smiles. “Totally not a rockstar, dude.” Mikey looks at him very sceptically until Pete speaks again. “Rockstar’s get away with things, they get glory and groupies and big piles of cocaine. I get dive bars and an ex-wife, and a group of asshole friends who are laughing at me for trying to chat up a guy in a bar.” Pete points back over at the guys in the corner and they all give him thumbs up again. “See? Totally not a rockstar.”

Mikey just laughs and says, “Okay, Mr. Rockstar. You’re like on MTV and in Alt Press. I’m not buying it.” Pete grins and sips his beer.

He and Pete end up moving to a small table soon after, and it’s just the two of them for the rest of the evening. 

Mikey knows there’s a lot of flirting going on between them, and as much is he’s generally fairly quiet, it’s easy with Pete. He’s lost count of the number of times that Pete has touched him on the arm or the shoulder, and he’s reciprocated with some little strokes to his arm, though Pete has bare arms so he tries to restrain himself.

Mikey asks about one of Pete’s tattoos, an owl on his forearm, and Mikey runs his finger along some of the line work while Pete recites a story of where he got it and why, and Pete beams the entire time. The skin on Pete’s arm is soft and Mikey doesn’t really want to give it back.

It’s good timing when Mikey’s glass has just an inch left when Pete has to leave. His friends that were sitting in the corner are throwing on jackets and downing the end of their drinks. 

“Gotta go,” Pete says and Mikey resists making a face. He hadn’t wanted to stay out for this long but Pete’s very easy to talk with and even cuter than he first appeared. Mikey would have happily stayed chatting to him all night.

Pete not so subtly asks him if he wants to come back to the hotel with him and Mikey declines. He likes Pete and it’s not that he doesn’t want to hook up with him – Pete is gorgeous and engaging – it’s more that Mikey’s just not pushed on being another groupie or something. It feels a bit cheap considering how well they’ve gotten on over the evening.

Pete shrugs and he seems to understand. They leave the bar together trailing far behind Pete’s friends, and Pete walks him to the end of the street where they will separate.

“So look, I know you’re not into coming back with me tonight, but if you wanted to get breakfast or something tomorrow, or brunch or whatever, give me a call,” Pete says. “It would be cool if you did.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets, and he looks a lot less like a rockstar when he’s being so adorable. 

“But you move on tomorrow, right?”  
“Yeah, I have to go to New York for a few things with the guys. Record company stuff. It’s really boring. But I can maybe push it back a little bit if you wanted to meet up.”

Mikey makes a face without meaning to. As much as he really enjoyed his evening with Pete, he feels that’s all it was; a chance meeting and enjoyable conversation.

“I don’t want to mess up your arrangements,” he says, and he knows that must sound like the lamest excuse, because it certainly feels like it.  
“It’s okay,” Pete says, though his face says that he’s a little disappointed. “But here, take my number. You can text me when you get home safe tonight. So I know the mean streets of Jersey haven’t swallowed you up.” Mikey laughs. “If you change your mind and want breakfast or whatever, give me a call.”

Pete goes to take Mikey’s phone out of his hand and Mikey lets him. He watches Pete punch in the digits and then takes his phone back. He doesn’t even look at it, just jams it in his pocket.  
“Sure.” Though Mikey is fairly sure he’s never going to see Pete again whether he texts him or not.

Pete stands close to Mikey and before Mikey can blink, Pete is reaching up on tippy toes to press a kiss to Mikey’s lips. It’s just a brushing kiss, and Pete is starting to pull away when Mikey makes a decision; if he’s likely to never get to do this again, he may as well kiss him properly now while he has the chance. He leans forward a fraction to capture Pete’s mouth and kisses him back. He brings his hand up to cup Pete’s jaw and Pete holds on to a fistful of Mikey’s shirt. Pete’s lips are soft and warm despite the chill in the New Jersey air and when Mikey pulls back, Pete is smiling.

“Later, Rockstar,” Mikey says and Pete grins again. Mikey watches Pete re-join the rest of his friends, who Mikey now assumes are possibly some of his bandmates. He turns on his heel and heads off home, revelling in the bounce in his step and he butterflies in his stomach.

He still feels a little giddy when he gets in his apartment door he’s greeted with a meow and then soft purring as his cat, Venom, brushes herself around his feet to say hello.

“Hey, furball” he says, and she meows back. “Yeah, I haven’t fed you yet. I know.”

He wanders into the kitchen, refills her food and water bowls and then, because it’s late, he heads to his bedroom. He strips down to his boxers and t-shirt and climbs under the covers. He thinks he should probably be polite and text Pete to say he got home safely, especially as he was thinking about that kiss the entire way home. He pulls up Pete’s contact details and starts to laugh. Pete has put himself in Mikey’s phone as _Pete (not a rockstar)_. 

He types out a message to Pete saying he’s home and that Jersey didn’t swallow him on the way home. He doesn’t sign his name at the end, assuming that Pete has only given his number to one random guy in a bar this evening. The reply comes back quickly.

_gld 2 hr it. I had fun 2nite_

From the second that Mikey left for home, and especially after that kiss, he’s been thinking and rethinking the decision to not go back to the hotel and there’s more than a pang of regret there. Sure it would have been a one night stand but it would probably have been an amazing one. He thinks again that maybe he even should have said yes to a breakfast date. Venom appears at the bedroom door and then hops onto the bed to sit as a fluffy ball of black and grey fur in Mikey’s lap. Mikey stares down at her. 

“What do you think, cat? Should I go meet this guy tomorrow?” She dutifully meows and Mikey says, “Okay, I will then. But I’m blaming you if it all goes wrong. No belly rubs for a week if he’s a douchebag.”

Mikey types out a few letters, then deletes them, then retypes them.

He settles on saying _ask me again if I want to meet for breakfast, my answer might be different this time_

Before Mikey can blink there’s another reply from Pete.

_wana mt me 4 brkfast <3 _

Mikey smiles and simply replies _sure :)_

They text back and forth with details of where and when to meet and Mikey signs off with _goodnight rockstar_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is definitely rated E / nsfw. for sure.

Mikey wakes the next morning and he’s almost forgotten about his new plans for breakfast with Pete until he checks his phone and then smiles. He feels a bubble of excitement when he looks at the last message that Pete sent which ended in lots of little x’s. 

They meet not far from Pete’s hotel, and Mikey can see him from halfway down the street. Pete is leaning against the wall, phone in hand and looking rather cute. He’s dressed in dark jeans and a leather jacket, and he looks like he’s engrossed in whatever is on his screen.

When Mikey is about ten feet away, Pete looks up and grins, putting his phone away instantly.

“Hey,” Mikey says.   
“Morning. Glad you changed your mind.”  
“Just wanted to save you from a terrible hotel buffet breakfast.”  
“My hero,” Pete beams, and it’s a smile big and wide enough that it goes all the way up to his eyes and makes those little creases again, making Mikey’s stomach flip a bit. Suddenly he remembers the little kiss from they shared and Pete’s soft lips, and it flips again. He has to remind himself to keep talking, and not just stare at Pete. 

“So. Breakfast? I know a place.”

Mikey takes him to a place nearby. It’s not the fanciest place, but he knows for a fact that they have awesome pancakes. It’s busy, and they have to stand and wait for a few minutes to get a table. When a waitress bustles by them, Pete grabs Mikey’s hand to pull him out of the way, and though he drops it when she’s gone, it sets a nice tone for their brunch date. 

They’re seated at a small booth and sit opposite each other. Pete orders pancakes and Mikey orders waffles and their coffee cups never go dry. Pete takes off his leather jacket – which Mikey can only describe as making him look edible – and Mikey spies a Morrissey shirt underneath. It means they spend longer than they should gushing over Morrissey, and then The Smiths, as they try to figure out who is the biggest fanboy. 

Conversation is as easy as the night before. Almost too easy. Most first dates – if in fact this counts as a first date or a date at all, Mikey’s not sure yet - Mikey has been on previously at least started out as awkward, stiff conversation about the menu or the weather or whatever. With Pete it’s so much better.

“So you play bass right?”  
“Shitty bass,” Pete corrects, and Mikey likes that he’s not taking himself seriously. “But yeah that’s right.”  
“I used to play bass. Or I guess I still do.”  
“You do? Bass too?” Pete holds up his hand for a high five, and Mikey’s not sure he could be any cuter.  
“Yeah, me and the guys had a band. We were good. I think at one point we all thought it might happen for us but life got in the way. We still jam though. And Frank, the guy who was trying to get back into his girlfriend’s good books, he still playing a lot. He’s in a zillion bands.”

Pete winks and points his finger at Mikey. “Closet rockstar. I knew it.”

Mikey raises an eyebrow and smiles but just a little. It’s not that he regrets them not trying to take the band further, he likes his life as it is, but sometimes he wonders how it might have worked out if things had been different. Maybe he’d be meeting Pete as a fellow rockstar and not just in a bar. “Something like that. Weren’t you supposed to be in New York today?” Mikey asks, running the last inch of waffle round his plate to soak up his remaining syrup. If he was eating with Gerard he’d dip his fingers in it or maybe lick the plate, but that’s not very polite behaviour for a date so he resists.

“Yeah.” Pete makes a face.  
“So what happened? Did your band stay behind too?”

Pete sighs but smiles. “Well, I asked if I could follow them there. I think they felt sorry for me. ‘Pete needs a date’, or something. So they left this morning and I only miss like one meeting tomorrow morning.” He shrugs. “They can cover for me.”

Pete finishes his last bite of pancake and dips his thumb into the last drops of syrup. He sticks his thumb into his mouth and grins at Mikey. Maybe that’s okay behaviour for a date with Pete after all. Mikey relaxes more.

By the time they finish eating, Mikey has drank about as much coffee as he can in one sitting before he starts vibrating, and that’s saying something for him. When the waitress tries to refill his cup and he declines, she gives him a look that says they should probably move on. It’s still bustling and busy and they probably need the table back. Pete throws a few notes on the table as he gets up even after Mikey offers to pay seeing as Pete bought several rounds of sodas the previous night.

“You can show me some New Jersey stuff in return,” he says, and that sounds like a plan to Mikey.

There’s always a point in a date where the organised part is over, - whether that’s dinner or a movie, or a late breakfast in this case – when there’s an awkward decision about if the date continues or not. Mikey doesn’t want it to end, not yet. He’s having fun and liking Pete more and more, though he knows he’ll kick himself for that later when Pete leaves and he never sees him again.

They take a walk through a park nearby, just for something to do, to prolong their conversation. Pete asks more about Mikey’s comic book shop, Killjoys, and Mikey tells him. He explains how it was Gerard’s idea but that they co-own and co-run it all fifty-fifty. They’ve both poured a lot into the business but it does well, and they have a very loyal customer base. He and Pete end up talking about comics and artists and superheroes, and when Pete mentions a comic book he once helped create, Mikey can’t stop grinning. It gives them a lot to talk about.

Pete suggests, while looking rather hopeful, that they keep talking about all their nerd stuff – Pete’s words, and Mikey laughs – back in his hotel.

It’s a line. Mikey knows it’s a line. 

It’s at that point where Mikey thinks the date is going to go from what could have been innocent pancakes between new friends, or a simple date, and into hook up territory. He can’t see any point in the future where his life will cross with Pete’s again so it can only be a hook up. Nothing has changed between last night and now, but right now he thinks that maybe that’s okay. He’s not surprised that Pete asked after being declined the night before. Their date has gone really well so far, and Mikey has a sneaking suspicion that Pete might be used to getting that he wants most of the time.

He lets himself give in and be seduced by Pete’s charm and his easy smiles. He maybe also lets himself indulge in the thought that he’s going back to the hotel room of a famous person, because what are the chances of that ever happening again. There’s an allure to it that Mikey can’t put his finger on, but it’s there. 

That allure is broken when Pete is awkward, goofy and quite adorable at the hotel. He lies on his stomach on the bed and shows Mikey things on his laptop. Nerd things. He brings up a bookmarked webpage of a specific, rare issue of Spiderman that he’s trying to get his hands on, and then gushes over an amazing Star Wars Lego set that he plans on putting together when he eventually gets time off. It’s very, very far from smooth moves he was expecting from Pete, and Mikey fins himself captivated.

In contrast, it feels like they could be just horny teenagers in someone’s bedroom; one minute they’re discussing comics and which Avenger is the most badass, the next they’re making out.

Pete kisses Mikey first, though really Mikey had been wanting to kiss Pete since they were having breakfast so it’s just that Pete got there before he did. They’re sitting on the hotel bed, cross legged with their shoes off and Pete leans in and presses his lips to Mikey’s. It’s just a quick peck and he pulls back, then smiles before going in again.

Mikey kisses back, and it’s just lips at first, soft, closed mouth kisses, and even when Pete parts his lips, there’s no tongue yet. They’re taking their time. Mikey kisses Pete’s full bottom lip, catching it between both of his gently, then his top lip. And then finally Pete slides his tongue into Mikey’s mouth and all the little nerve endings there send a quick message to his dick; _this is amazing_.

Mikey gets one hand on Pete’s bicep and the other around the back of his neck to reel him in closer. Pete hauls himself into Mikey’s lap and they’re close enough that his chest is pressed against Mikey’s, heat radiating through the thin layers of cotton. Pete’s a really good kisser, enthusiastic but sweet, and he kisses like he really fucking means it. It feels so good like this, effortless and natural, and it’s easy for Mikey to get lost in it and just concentrate on Pete’s hands exploring his arms and back, Pete’s tongue licking and stroking his own, and how Pete tastes of pancake syrup. 

They’re both learning each other, and Mikey’s always thought it’s one of the nicest things about being with someone for the first time. He knows next to nothing about Pete – okay he did a very quick google search, but there’s was a _lot_ about Pete and he didn’t think it fair to read much considering Mikey’s Facebook profile is set to private so Pete couldn’t do the same even if he knew his last name – but he’s slowly learning his body by paying attention to his reactions. Pete seems to like it when Mikey slides his hands under his shirt at the hem, so skin on skin contact is good, and Pete makes a soft noise somewhere at the back of his throat when he lightly bites down into bottom lip so teeth are good too it seems.

Pete grins as he rucks Mikey’s shirt up and Mikey lets him pull it off, though Mikey has been thinking about how he wants to get Pete’s clothes off since breakfast, so again Pete only just beats him to it. Pete runs his hands over Mikey’s stomach and chest, rubbing his thumbs over Mikey’s nipples, and Mikey’s breath catches. His hands are soft, his touch light and careful, and he alternates between using his entire hand and just the tips of his fingers. 

Mikey tugs Pete’s Morrissey shirt up over his head and _god_ the ink on his arms is hot, but there’s more underneath his clothes, and it’s even hotter. Mikey ducks his head and gets his mouth on the thorns that adorn Pete’s collarbones. He wants to see how it tastes, somehow he imagines it will taste different, but it just tastes of skin; Pete’s skin. He licks in circles, mouth open, and Pete pushes forward greedily against it. Mikey kisses and nibbles down as far as he can, but he’s going to have to push Pete onto his back to get at the rest. He licks over the skin on the other side of Pete’s throat and kisses Pete’s pulse repeatedly. 

He assumes that if Pete is in the public eye, he probably can’t have any sort of visible love bites, so Mikey doesn’t bite hard, but he’d love nothing more than to suck a big, disgusting hickey right up high on Pete’s neck. Then maybe the next public picture Mikey saw of Pete he’d see the mark and know ‘I did that’. But he nips a line down Pete’s neck to his shoulder using just enough pressure for Pete to feel it.

He leans forward far enough that it pushes Pete backwards and flat onto the mattress. His intention is to kiss a path down Pete’s body and maybe taste that other ink right under his naval. But instead Pete pulls him close, one hand at the nape of his neck, the other on the small of his back and just kisses him deeply, breathing him in. 

Pete’s hands are warm and Mikey can pick out the guitar calluses on his fingers that are similar to the ones he used to have, that he still gets when he jams with the guys a lot. Mikey sucks in a breath when Pete trails his palms down Mikey’s back and over his ass, squeezing briefly, making Mikey rub forward against Pete’s crotch.

“God, if I thought grabbing your ass would make you do that, I would have grabbed it a lot sooner.” Mikey just laughs in response and kisses him. Pete squeezes Mikey’s ass again through his jeans, though this time Pete grinds his hips up at the same time and the friction is incredible. 

Pete hums. “Should probably get the rest of these off,” he says and rubs his finger along the skin just inside Mikey’s waistband. There’s a fumble as they both try to get at each other’s flies and work buttons and zips. They pull apart to wiggle their pants off, and when Mikey climbs back over Pete it’s just a delicious sensation of skin on skin, the only thing between them being two pairs of boxer briefs which Mikey now hates with a passion. Not that the boxers are doing much to hide how turned on they both are, Mikey can feel Pete’s dick, hot and hard, when they grind their hips together.

“So how do you want to do this?” Pete asks. Mikey is about to open his mouth to say how much he’d like to fuck Pete – though he’s so turned on that honestly he’d be happy with a sloppy handjob at this point - when Pete answers his own question. “I was hoping you’d want to fuck me?” And hey, great minds do think alike! Mikey smirks and nods. “Awesome,” Pete grins like his whole week has been made.

Prepping Pete is wonderful. He’s so responsive to the fast little thrusts that Mikey uses, writhing and pushing back down against Mikey’s hand. Mikey leans over him and kisses him the whole time, swallowing his moans, giving him more when he asks for it. He adds another finger, scissoring them, and Pete arches into the stretch and makes a really gorgeous array of little whimpers and sighs.

Mikey sits back on his heels and Pete puts the condom on for him. He closes his eyes as Pete jerks him several times in firm strokes, before rolling the rubber the length of his dick and then smearing lube over him. Pete reaches up to kiss him again, and it’s almost chaste for a moment as they kiss with gentle closed mouthed kisses and Mikey holds both of Pete’s hands in his. 

Pete flips himself over and gets into all fours position and Mikey strokes down his back with one hand and takes hold of his hip with the other. Pete’s ass is firm and gorgeous, and Mikey skims his hand over the curve and down Pete’s thighs before he does anything else. Pete’s sort of stunning, all dark skin and wiry muscle. He’s small and compact and wonderfully proportioned. Mikey gets even more fired up when he lines himself up with Pete’s hole, feeling a giddy little thrill run through him, and then he presses forward and is surrounded by fantastic, tight heat. All the air in his lungs come out in one go when Pete clenches around him, and pushes back so that they’re skin to skin.

It’s easy to build a rhythm. Mikey pushes forward and Pete pushes back into it, and pace and depth increase quickly. Pete feels amazing, squeezing around him with every thrust and he makes a guttural sound every time Mikey bottoms out. Pete’s thighs tense and shake when Mikey rubs his hand over the muscle and then presses his fingers into the flesh. Mikey thrusts harder, faster, he wants to shake Pete apart and see what sound he makes when he comes.

Mikey’s close, maybe it’s because it’s so hot and utterly surreal for a Sunday afternoon, or maybe it’s just because this feels so fucking good, and Pete is amazing. He leans forward and wraps his hand around Pete’s dick, determined to take Pete over that metaphorical cliff with him. 

He only gets in a few tight strokes before Pete’s tenses and spasms and lets out a roar as he comes, pulsing hot over Mikey’s hand. Mikey comes right after, because that animal sound that Pete makes is far too hot not to. He feels wrung out and exhilarated all in one. 

Afterwards, they sit on the bed, both wrapped in thick hotel bathrobes and watch trash television. It’s complete contrast to the frantic fucking they just did, but it marries well with how comfortable the day had been up until that point. It’s nice, and Mikey doesn’t want to go home yet.

When they arrived at the hotel, Mikey didn’t really take in his surroundings because he was more than preoccupied with all the little coy smiles and looks that he and Pete were sending each other. Now that he’s relaxed and sated, he lets his eyes dart around the room. It’s a nice place and everything is non-descript caramel-beige-cream colours that make most of the room look like it’s a big, luxury latte. What makes it a little less opulent is that Pete has made it looked quite lived in, with his suitcase spilling a mess of clothes onto the floor and there’s bits and pieces all over the dresser and the bedside locker. 

Mikey spies a big name tag on Pete’s luggage and he remembers another thing they have in common.

“So wait, you’re last name is Wentz right?”  
Pete makes a little salute. “That’s me.”  
“Then you know the pain of having to have patience enough to wait until the end of the alphabet to be called for something?”  
“Are you at the end of the alphabet as well?” Pete looks thrilled that they might share that too.  
“Yep. Mikey Way.” Pete holds up his hand for another high five which Mikey returns. “Hey, I bet we would have been put beside each other in class if it was done alphabetically.”  
“We totally would have. I’d have passed you notes all the time,” he grins.  
“You’d ask me to homecoming?” Because if they’re going to play pretend, then Mikey wants it to be over the top.  
“Totally, and we could make out under the bleachers.”

So far Mikey’s been pleasantly surprised by how un-rockstar-like Pete has behaved (if he ignores the expensive hotel that they’re currently in) but he’s intrigued but some of the clichéd things he’s heard about the lifestyle, even if he assumes that most of them are probably just that; clichés. 

“You have to do interviews, right? Do people ask weird stuff? Do you answer bizarre questions?”  
“We get asked tons of stuff and I especially get asked weird things, because I probably gave too much of myself away in the past,” Pete says, and he rolls his eyes a little like that’s a thought he’s had too many times before. “We get asked all sorts.”

“Like what?”  
“About anything. Music stuff, writing, touring, performing.”  
“That’s all normal stuff for a musician though, right?”  
“Oh,” Pete says, with the raise of an eyebrow. “You want the weird stuff. Want me to interview you?” 

Mikey chews the inside of his lip and considers. He’s sure that Pete has been asked really crazy questions so he’s not sure if he wants to give all of those sort of answers about himself away. But maybe it would be a good way to get to know each other. “Okay. But you gotta answer the same questions too.”

“That’s my job. No problem.” Pete settles himself so that he’s cross-legged and then seems to remember that he’s obviously naked under the robe, covering himself up only as an afterthought. “Okay first question; What’s your favourite colour?”

“C’mon. Really? I’m not six years old so I don’t have one.”  
“Right?” Pete grins. “But I’ve been asked that. And I’m just warming up. What’s your favourite food to eat, and to cook?”  
“To eat I think Sushi or Thai. And to cook, probably something Italian or maybe Thai again. You?”  
“Pizza all the way, but I like Sushi too. I don’t know what my favourite thing to cook is. Maybe Italian too. It’s super easy to do pasta, but it’s carb-tastic. Next question; Are you ticklish?”  
Mikey raises an eyebrow. “You’ve been asked that? What difference would it make?”  
“I don’t know,” Pete shrugs. “People like to know things. Are you?”

Mikey feels like he’s walking himself into some sort of trap, but he answers. “Yeah. But I get pretty violent when I’m tickled. Involuntarily of course, but I’ve kicked someone in the ribs during a tickle fight before.”

“Awesome. Duly noted,” Pete says. From the mischievous glint in Pete’s eye he almost expects a full-on tickle attack to begin but there’s nothing. “I’m super ticklish. Just so you know. But I won’t tell you where.” That glint is still in Pete’s eye, and now Mikey really wants to know where exactly to tickle but Pete continues his interview. “What colour underwear are you wearing?”

“Really? Well obviously I’m not wearing any at the moment, and you took off my underwear yourself earlier so you know the colour. But people really ask that?”  
“Sure. Sometimes they want to see them.” Mikey eyebrows shoot upwards. “Not like strip off our pants or anything,” Pete clarifies. “But to see the waistband or something. It’s weird.”  
“Yeah, it sounds weird. Do you ever lie when you’re asked stuff?”  
“All the time. Sometimes it’s easier to give a vague answer. Sometimes it’s easier to blatantly lie if we have stuff going on the background that we’re not ready to talk about yet, like an album or a project.”

“What about your personal life? Do you get asked about that?”  
“Yep,” Pete nods. “I was very honest about stuff in the past and I maybe shouldn’t have been. I gave too many private details sometimes, and I probably still do in a way. I lie about that stuff all the time now too because it’s no one’s business, but it’s also fun. Sometimes I’ll say I’m dating and I’m not, or I’ll say I’m single if I’m seeing someone. People ask anyway. I guess it’s human nature to be nosy.”

“What about if you’re dating guys? Are people big mean homophobes or more open minded?”  
Pete shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve never publicly a guy so I’ve never had to find out.”  
“No?”  
“Nope. Any liaisons with guys have been very quiet and unofficial. I mean my friends and family ae cool with it, but I don’t know about the rest.”   
“Aren’t you afraid that I’ll sell my story? _‘My gay sex romp with Pete Wentz.’_ I wouldn’t, by the way. But does it worry you?”  
“Awesome headline, by the way.” Pete laughs, and then looks more serious. “No I’m not worried. You seem trustworthy,” Mikey smiles, just a tiny little quirk of his lips, but inside he’s beaming a huge, bright smile that Pete called him trustworthy. Pete shrugs again and looks like he might want to change the subject so Mikey doesn’t ask anything else.

Pete’s questions continue and most of them are just strange, nosy things to ask, but maybe that’s the nature of that whole business. 

“Okay last questions. Have you ever had sex outside? Or in a public place?”  
“People are fucking weird for needing to know that,” Mikey laughs. It’s a personal question, and not information that he would be volunteering to the world, but he thinks it’s okay to tell Pete. “Not outside, but in a semi-public place. Public enough to have to keep quiet. Have you?”  
“Yes?”   
“Both?”  
“Yes.” Mikey’s curious but Pete doesn’t give details. 

“Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions today, Mikey Way. Enjoy the rest of your day,” Pete says in a fake interview’s voice. Mikey’s so fucking charmed by Pete and his silliness.

“I kinda wish I’d come back last night,” Mikey confesses.  
“What made you change your mind?”  
“Nothing to lose but I might have a good time with a cool guy?” Mikey offers.  
“And how is it so far? You having a good time,” Pete asks, and he has that little hopeful look in his eyes. It looks adorable on him.  
“Yeah, I am. But the guy’s not that cool,” Mikey says, keeping a mostly straight face. “He’s kind of a dork.”

Pete simpers and then puffs out his chest dramatically, making his bathrobe open six inches more than it was and giving Mikey an eyeful of Pete’s chest. It shouldn’t be that hot, Mikey’s seen every inch of Pete already, but his dick twitches. “I’ll have you know, Mikey Way, that I’m a super cool guy.”

“Your mom says you’re cool?”  
“Yeah and some guy said it too that one time,” he grins. Mikey wishes again he’d come back with Pete the night before, because then he’d have potentially had an extra twelve hours in Pete’s company. “It’s okay, I’m pretty sure you’re cool too.”  
“Were you not listening this whole time? I’m a total comic book nerd. I _run_ a comic book store. With my equally nerdy sibling. And I live with a cat. I may as well be the comic book guy from the Simpsons. Totally not cool,” Mikey says and Pete bumps his shoulder.  
“Okay fine. We can be uncool together then.” 

“Deal. So is this what you do on days off? Lounge around in a bathrobe and watch shit on TV doing fake interviews?”

Pete shrugs. “Sometimes. It’s always different. Depends on where we are I guess. Sightseeing, shopping, sleeping, writing. Normal day off stuff I guess?”  
“Not, like, hookers and cocaine?” Mikey asks and Pete’s lips turn up at the edges.  
“That’s weekends,” Pete explains, and he would sound convincing if he wants full on grinning now. “And holidays.”  
“I see.”  
“What about you. Hookers and cocaine too?”  
“Yep. All the time,” Mikey says, leaning in close. “Sometimes even before work. Nah really the store takes up a lot of my week so on time off it’s just hanging out with the guys. Mostly the guys I jam with”  
“The guy from the bar?”  
“Yeah, that’s Frank. I hang out with Gerard a lot too, even outside of work. We’re pretty close siblings. And Ray’s our guitarist, he’s a musical genius. Seriously. He’s a great guy, too.”  
“That sounds pretty cool. I have a musical genius in my band too.” Pete looks both interested and impressed. “So, this is probably going to sound like a weird idea, but you wanna take a bath?”

Mikey raises an eyebrow. That is a weird idea. But not the worst he’s ever heard. “With you?”

“Sure?” Pete says and shrugs, but he sounds less sure now, like Mikey might run for the hills. Mikey thinks about it for a second and then he wants to laugh.   
“Like in Pretty Woman?”  
“No!” Pete throws his head back and laughs. “What the fuck? It’s totally not.”  
“Dude, it is. We’re in a fancy hotel, and you’re the well off, well rockstar instead of a business man-“  
“That would make you-“  
“The hooker with a heart of gold?” Mikey laughs. “Yeah, maybe I didn’t think that through.”

Things have been so easy and comfortable with Pete that he finds himself says yes to joining Pete in the huge tub even though he’s never really had a bath with someone, let alone on a date, let alone on a _first_ date, but he’s already fucked Pete, maybe a soak together isn’t really that strange. Pete runs a bath and when it’s full – which takes a long time, it’s a super big tub – Pete sheds his robe and gets in one end and Mikey gets in the other. 

“I love taking baths,” Pete says closing his eyes and leaning back against the end of the bath. “I have this really cool tub at my house, it’s nice and big. I could spend hours in it. But it’s pretty nice when there’s a hotel room with a big one too.”  
“No tub in my house, just a shower.”  
“Fuck, I’d miss having one. It’s like a little bit of quiet time. It can get pretty loud and busy and stuff. I guess it’s just nice.” Pete shrugs at the end.  
“Yeah it’s pretty fun,” Mikey says, meaning this particular soak in the tub more than any other ones. “What about when you go on tour? Like, you have a tour bus, right?”  
“Yeah but I have yet to find one with a tub. Just a shitty little shower and it gets pretty gross with lots of people sharing. Sometimes it’s more hygienic to wash with those wet wipes.”  
“Nice!” Maybe Mikey should be freaked out from hearing about someone’s slightly less than amazing personal hygiene, _on a date_ , but he’s not at all. It’s amusing. “Sounds very rockstar.”  
“I told you. Not a rockstar.” Pete flicks bubbles in Mikey’s direction and Mikey just laughs, so Pete does it again. 

Mikey kicks his foot gently and it sends a splash of water at Pete. “Watch it,” Pete warns, but his tone is playful. “Don’t start a water fight you don’t intend to finish.”  
“Does it still count as a water fight if we are actually _in_ a bath tub already?”  
“Maybe not.” Pete flicks bubbles at Mikey again. “I’m coming over, okay?”

Pete gets up, displacing water and sending some over the edge of the tub and onto the floor. He switches position with a grin and sits propped up against Mikey’s chest, in the vee of Mikey’s thighs. It feels intimate, and Mikey thinks it should feel weird but it doesn’t. It feels nice. He puts an arm around Pete, resting his hand on Pete’s stomach. After a few moments of Mikey drawing little circles on Pete’s skin, Pete tugs his hand lower, and _oh_. 

Pete’s mostly hard already. It’s not exactly a surprise, they’re naked and in a bath tub together, Mikey figured it was just a matter of time. 

When Mikey wraps his hand around Pete, Pete leans all the way back against him, his head on Mikey’s shoulder and his neck elongated. Mikey desperately wants to lick down Pete’s throat, and maybe over the thorn tattoo again too, but the angle won’t allow it. Mikey begins to stroke and Pete’s eyes flutter closed, dark eyelashes fanning over his cheeks. He looks beautiful. His lips are parted and his breathing gets steadily deeper as Mikey’s fist slides over Pete’s dick again and again. Right before Pete comes, he licks his lips, running his tongue over his bottom lip. He swears softly and then comes, arching up into Mikey’s hand.

Pete lays there, eyes still closed, for a few moments. His breathing is slowing down to normal and he’s making little contented _hmm mmm_ sounds that Mikey sort of loves. 

Mikey is pretty turned on by now. Watching Pete come was so wonderfully hot that he’s relieved when Pete finally moves. He turns himself so that he can put his arm behind Mikey’s head. He fits his mouth to Mikey’s neck, just below his ear and licks slowly, just lapping his tongue and then closing his mouth over it. It feels fucking fantastic. Even more so when Pete skims his hand down Mikey’s chest and stomach and smooths over his wet skin.

Mikey focuses on the feeling of Pete’s mouth on his neck; the contrast between the soft-wet warmth of his lips and the scrape of teeth over his skin. Pete curls his hand around Mikey’s balls briefly and then moves up and begins to jerks him, slow and dirty. Mikey comes apart with the heat of the water, the pressure of Pete’s hand, the way he’s gently sucking on Mikey’s pulse. He comes with a choked off cry, his orgasm rolling over him, and Pete slows his hand but eases him through it to the end.

Pete shakes his hand in the water to clean it slightly before tipping Mikey’s chin down to meet his mouth and they kiss over and over.

“We should probably get out,” Pete says, his voice low and his lips are close to Mikey’s ear. Mikey is still coming down from his orgasm high, so getting out, or moving at all sounds like a cruel punishment when Pete is so heavy and comfortable beside him. “I think the water is about fifty percent jizz now.” 

Mikey manages a shaky giggle. Getting out of the tub is going to be tough considering his legs feel boneless. Pete kisses him and then stands up, struggling a little, letting Mikey know he’s not the only one who feels fucked out.

“I feel sorry for whoever has to clean this room when you check out.”  
“Me too. I’ll leave a nice tip to make up for all the jizz,” Pete says and he looks slightly sheepish but not really sorry. Mikey thinks he should tease him over that being such a rockstar thing to say but he lets that one slide, mostly because he’s also been contributing to the mess.

They climb back onto the bed and Pete cuddles up to Mikey to watch more junk television on several of the hotel’s infinite amount of stations. When they get hungry, Pete calls room service and gets food sent up for them. Mikey doesn’t miss out on another opportunity to tease Pete for being a rockstar, but he’s also enjoying the bit of luxury he wouldn’t usually get to experience.

The day goes quickly and afternoon turns into evening, which turns into night. When Pete asks if Mikey wants to stay, Mikey hesitates. He should leave, this was only supposed to be a brunch date, and it’s gone far beyond that. He hadn’t planned on staying this late at all, but he also hadn’t planned on having such a good time. The only reason he can think of to leave, is to go home to check on Venom and feed her. If that’s the only reason, then Frank owes him one and can make sure she’s okay. 

“Yeah, I can stay. I just need to ask someone to check on my cat.”  
“Your cat?” Pete’s amused. “That’s important. I don’t want to be responsible for you neglecting it.” 

Mikey texts Frank and gets a reply almost instantly telling him no problem, Venom will be looked after, and to have fun, and with several winky faces after it. Mikey puts his phone away and Pete settles his head on Mikey’s shoulder. He falls asleep at some point lying flat on his back, and the last thing he remembers is the weight of Pete’s arm around his waist.

The next morning has a relatively early start. Pete says that he really has to leave this time or the band will fire his ass. Before they get up, Pete calls room service again (cue more ribbing from Mikey) to get them to send pastries and a pot of coffee. “I usually go downstairs to grab a coffee but I don’t want to get dressed yet,” he says with a glint in his eye that turns Mikey’s insides to jelly.

Once they’ve eaten, Pete slides down the bed and kisses down Mikey’s body as he moves. “I was hoping I could go down on you,” he says, and Mikey can’t really think of any reason to object to that fantastic idea, so he just lies back and let’s Pete work away. Pete’s mouth is magic and he gets Mikey off in no time at all, and ignoring Mikey’s warning when he’s about to come, Pete swallows him down. “Less mess for the maid service to clean up,” he says with a wink.

Mikey returns the favour and Pete is more vocal, not caring at all that the rest of the hotel can probably hear his appreciative noises, and he comes calling Mikey’s name.

They dress and Pete half-heartedly throws his belongings into his open suit case as he moves around the room. He tells Mikey he’ll finish his packing after he walks Mikey downstairs despite Mikey’s protests that he can find his way out himself.

“Fuck no. I’m walking you out. It feels seedy if I just kick you out now. Like it’s just a stupid hook-up or something.”

Mikey wants to say _but isn’t this just a hook up?_ but restrains himself. He’s had fun. He doesn’t expect to see Pete again, but he doesn’t want to ruin the last few moments by being cynical and too honest.

Pete kisses him in the empty elevator but refrains from doing so in the lobby. He walks Mikey to the door and they say their goodbye’s just inside. 

“So, can I call you?” Pete says.  
“Sure,” Mikey replies. “But I won’t hold my breath. I know rockstars have busy lives.”  
Pete grins again. “Told you I’m not a rockstar.”  
“Yeah, I’m still not buying it.”

Mikey wishes they could have a final kiss but he understands about public displays of affection for someone like Pete. A kiss on a street corner in the middle of the night is one thing, a kiss in broad daylight is quite another. Pete makes up for it with a brief squeeze of his hand a mega-watt grin, just for him.

And then he’s leaving. Although Mikey went into it with his eyes open, knowing it was always going to just a once off, he lets himself feel a little sad that there can’t be more.

*

When Mikey gets home he checks his email on impulse. He has a notification; _Pete Wentz is now following you_. He thinks that Pete is just being polite, maybe keeping in contact with Mikey in case he passes back through Jersey. He clicks on to Pete’s profile just to have a look, and Pete has left an update. _thanks for showing me a nice time New Jersey. Can’t wait to come back and visit soon_.  
He clicks the _Follow_ button on Pete’s profile. Not that Mikey even uses Twitter regularly, it just seems polite. And hey, if nothing else, now he has an actual famous person in his followers list.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lots and lots of fluff in this.  
> Unbetad as ever. Feel free to point out any plot holes, typos or general fuckups :)

It takes until the next day, when Mikey is just home from picking up groceries, for Pete to text him.

_I was tryin 2 play it cool and wait 2 txt u but I suk at waitin. I had a gr8 time in jersey_

Mikey takes a few minutes to reply, pottering around the kitchen and feeding Venom in between.  
_glad NJ treated you well. Had a great time too. How is NY?_

There’s a half an hour gap before Pete replies, and by then Mikey is cooking dinner and Venom is wandering around at his feel looking for scraps and a cuddle. _busy. But NY is always cool._

Mikey can’t argue with that. _where do you go after NY?_

_Boston & dwn east coast_

Pete sounds really busy with not much chance of him passing through Jersey again any time soon. Mikey is a little sad, though he’s not sure why. He knew this would be the case when he slept with Pete. He sends back a quick text, ignoring the gloom in his stomach. _sounds really busy, Mr. Rockstar_

Instead of Pete replying, he calls Mikey.

“Hey, so if I was to show up in New Jersey on say, Thursday, would you maybe let me take you out?”

Mikey is thrown a little. He wasn’t expecting Pete to ask him out, let alone this week, let alone _ever_. But maybe that could be a thing that they could do. What has he got to lose? He had a good time with Pete, a really good time, if he’s honest. A part of him thinks he should say no, that this won’t last because Mikey is just a guy who runs a comic book store and Pete is well, Pete. But the rest of him is very excited at the thought of another date.

“But what about Boston and the East Coast?”  
“I have a day off. If I’m really quick, and get an early flight the next day I can make it.”

Mikey smiles and he lets his brain skip forward to what a date might be like. He doesn’t realise that he hasn’t actually answered yet. 

“So what do you say?” Pete asks again.  
“Alright then. Thursday”.  
“Thursday,” and Mikey could swear he can hear the grin in Pete’s voice.

*

Mikey tries not to let himself get nervous before his date. He wasn’t really nervous before their breakfast date but somehow this date seems like a bigger one, because Pete is coming all the way to see him. He has to work during the day and decides not to mention to Gerard that he has a date. He knows that Gerard will go full-on big brother mode and want details of who this person is and how Mikey met them, and Mikey doesn’t want anything to ruin the buzz he’s feeling from his excitement. Of course he does mention that he needs the next day off – for vague, non-descript reasons, nothing to do with potentially getting laid tonight. Nuh huh – but then Frank pops by the shop as he does quite often. Frank has a big mouth and Mikey needs to remember that.

“You all excited, Mikeyway?” Frank asks with a devilish grin. Mikey tries to communicate with him telepathically, silently telling him to shut the fuck up and hoping that all these years surrounded by stories about super heroes will have somehow given him magical powers. But it’s not to be. “What?” Frank asks. “Your date. Are you pumped to see loverboy?”

“What date?” Gerard asks, and it’s too late for Mikey now. The store’s quiet today and Gerard had spent most of the afternoon perched at the register, doodling and sketching. Mikey had hoped that he was deep enough into a sketch that he maybe didn’t hear Radio Iero and his big mouth, but he’s not that lucky.

“I have a date,” Mikey concedes and gives Frank a filthy look.  
“Oh shit. Sorry Mikes. It’s supposed to be a secret date, right?”  
“Yes. It was.” 

“You have a date? With who? You didn’t say.” Gerard says, and he barely looks up from his sketch. To most people that might look like Gerard is not really too interested in the conversation, but Mikey knows better.  
“Yeah, I have a date. Just this guy I met.”  
“A rockstar guy,” Frank says and _Jesus_ , Mikey is going to smack him. Maybe with a large stack of comics.  
“A rockstar?” Gerard asks.  
“Gee, he’s this guy I met in a bar last week when Frank was a tool and Jamia had to ream him a new one.” Mikey throws another filthy look in Frank’s general direction. “He’s a musician. I wasn’t going to say anything because I wanted to see how it goes first, okay?”  
“Okay,” Gerard says after a long pause.

Mikey waits for some sort of brotherly warning but he doesn’t get one. Yet. Awesome. 

The good thing about telling Gerard about the date is that he can get some recommendations for where to bring Pete. Gerard texts Lindsey – who Mikey would trust more for this sort of thing– and gets the name of a nice place.

Mikey’s so afraid of being late that he ends up being ten minutes early, so he hangs around outside the restaurant. As soon as he sees Pete approaching, his face breaks into a too-big grin and he curses himself - he’s going to look like a cheesy idiot - until Pete spots him and Mikey sees him grins too. 

There’s no hello kiss to greet each other, but Mikey didn’t really expect one, so he’s not sad and there’s tons of little smiles shared so that makes up for it. Pete puts his hand briefly on the small of Mikey’s back as they enter the restaurant though, and even though it’s only there for a second, Mikey misses it when it’s gone.

Pete looks gorgeous, not that Mikey expected he wouldn’t, but he’s dressed up a little more. He has a short-sleeved, denim button down shirt on, and he’s wearing skinny jeans but they look less casual than the one’s he wore before. Mikey had spent far too much time thinking about what to wear and settled for similarly smart-ish casual with a black sweater and black jeans. 

Mikey owes Lindsay for picking out the restaurant, because it’s pretty much perfect for this sort of date. It’s on the romantic side without being all hearts and flowers, and it’s busy enough for no one to pay too much attention to two guys on a date who are actually being quite adorable despite the fact that there’s zero physical contact.

Mikey asks about Pete’s day and how the tour is going and Pete tells him of how busy everything is at the moment with the tour and all the press and obligations that go with it. Mikey’s intrigued, it sounds chaotic at times, and earlier today Pete had to squeeze I three different things before he left for the airport. Before Mikey has time to think that it sounds really tough, Pete explains how it’s also amazing to get to do some interesting things and meet cool people.

“It affords me the luxury of flying to New Jersey on a whim to go on a date too. I’m not going to complain.”  
“I won’t complain either then,” Mikey smiles. “Have you played in Jersey much before?”

“Do you come here often?” Pete grins, and Mikey ducks his head, hiding a smile and a blush from walking himself into that trap. “Yeah it’s on most tours. I never get to do much here though. It’s never at the start of the end of a tour so we always move on right after. I have some favourite things about Jersey though.”  
“You do?”  
"I’ll add you to it.” Pete smirks and Mikey wants to melt into a puddle on the floor, even though that sounds like a line from a mile away.  
“What are the others?” Mikey asks, intrigued that he might be on a list of nice things.  
“Bruce Springsteen, Saves the Day, and that guy from Cake Boss to name just a few.” That’s a pretty impressive list and Mikey might blushes.

“Oh yeah, Cake Boss is the best. I’ll bring you to the bakery some time.” Pete grins, and Mikey wishes he could bring him there right now if it’s making Pete look so happy. “Wait, you don’t have any stuff with you. No bag or anything.”

Pete looks at Mikey like he’s being a bit stupid. “It’s at the hotel. Left it there right before I met you.”

That makes sense. If it was the other way around and he was travelling to meet Pete he would have done the same, but they’ve been talking so much for the past few days that he really wouldn’t have minded if Pete just showed up on his doorstep, not at all actually. “You probably could have just stayed with me, you know.”

“No, I couldn’t do that. That would be very presumptuous of me to think that you wanted me to stay over. A hotel is fine.” He looks at Mikey, and Mikey can see a little glint of something in his eyes. “Unless you really wanted me to stay?” 

It’s both a question and a suggestion, and Mikey smiles because the answer is undoubtedly a yes. He nods and Pete reaches across and squeezes Mikey’s finger lightly and grins like a buffoon. He’s usually much better at controlling his face. Pete obviously has magical powers.

With that matter decided, the rest of dinner passes in a blur of butterflies (Mikey’s) and flirting (both of them). Pete orders a desert and Mikey passes on sharing it, but while Pete is eating, all Mikey can think about is how he’s going to lick that chocolate ice cream right out of Pete’s mouth as soon as they’re alone.

When they get outside the restaurant, its dark and the street is quiet, and Pete kisses him hard and fast. Mikey can taste the promises that Pete is making with his tongue, and it makes him want to run all the way home with him. His heart is thumping when he breaks the kiss, but they take their time to get back to his apartment, walking for a while, bumping shoulders and grinning until they get a cab.

Once inside Mikey’s place, the door is barely closed before they’re all over each other making up for any affection they didn’t give each other earlier in the evening. They frantically kiss in the hallway, touch and grab at each other against the wall, and pull off each other’s clothes on the way to Mikey’s room. The foreplay is messy and with no finesse, just energy and need, but when they get to Mikey’s bed, they fuck slowly, and face to face this time, until they’ve both come, collapsing sweaty and exhausted.

It’s been a long day, and Mikey is tired but he doesn’t want to sleep. He knows that Pete has to leave again in the morning so he feels like he should soak up as much of him as he can. He’s still convinced he won’t get another date with him. All joking aside, he knows that Pete is actually a very busy man. 

He and Pete talk for a while and Mikey asks him about what he has to do the next day and the day after that, and Pete asks Mikey about the comic book store. It’s small talk, but it’s comfortable and easy.

Pete startles when Venom hops up onto the bed with a small meow, and then he laughs because it’s just a cat.

“Pete, this is Venom. Venom, this is Pete.”  
Pete reaches out his hand and lets the cat sniff it. She seems to approve of him, so he scratches the top of her head and grins at Mikey when she starts purring. “Cool cat.”

“Yeah she’s great. Found her outside when she was just a little ball of fur. She was tiny, probably too young to be on her own. She was outside for three days in a row, and I felt awful, so I took her in to feed her and she just stayed.”  
“Why Venom?”  
“Gee named her. Said even if she was little that she could still be badass.”

Pete watches as she flops onto her side so he can scratch her stomach. He looks like he’s thinking. “So a bit like me!” he says with a huge grin, and Mikey laughs until he snorts. It wasn’t the reaction he was expecting.  
“Yeah, I guess. Small and badass,” he says and kisses Pete again, because fuck if he isn’t adorable.

They fall asleep together at some point, though when Mikey wakes, it’s early and the bed is empty. He finds Pete on his sofa, wearing just his boxers and one of Mikey’s hoodies with Venom curled up in his lap purring loudly. 

“Hey. Why are you up? Didn’t think you had to leave this early?”  
“I don’t always sleep that well. It’s hard to have a proper sleep pattern when I’m never in the one place.”

Mikey sits down beside him. Pete scratches Venom again and she stretches out in his lap, head-butting him gently to show her appreciation. Mikey grins. “I think she likes you.” Pete returns the grin and scratches her behind the ear until she settles again and closes her eyes, leaning into Pete’s hand.

“And what about you?” Pete asks.

Mikey thinks he knows what Pete is asking, but just in case he’s wrong he dodges the question. “Yeah she likes me too, I think. Though sometimes I wonder if she thinks of me as the human can-opener.”

Pete tilts his head and smiles again. “I’m sure she likes you a lot. Though that’s not really what I meant.” He looks down at the cat in his lap, and when he looks back up Mikey would swear there’s a faint blush in his cheeks. “I like you.” And that’s what Mikey had been thinking – and hoping – that Pete had been hinting at.

“Yeah I like you too, Pete,” Mikey says, and those wonderful butterflies fill his insides again. 

“A lot,” Pete says, in case Mikey missed what he was saying, but Mikey gets it and kisses him. “A lot,” Mikey repeats, half muffled by Pete’s mouth and he feels Pete smile into the kiss. Mikey leans over so that he can cup a hand to Pete’s jaw and kiss him properly.

“Come back into my bed and I’ll blow you before you have to go,” Mikey says and pulls Pete by the wrist, but it’s not like he has to make much effort; Pete is on his feet before Mikey has finished speaking.

*

Pete leaves and it sucks. They don’t make plans for another date but Pete texts him from his unused hotel room saying he had a great time and can’t wait to see Mikey again. It’s only been two actual dates, including their breakfast date, but Mikey really likes Pete.

He knows if this was a normal person that he met and had two dates with that lived nearby, or even in the same state, he would be calling them up right now and asking for a third one. And even if Pete told him he’ll arrange to come back on his next available day off, it’s hard to be patient when he has those lovely butterflies flitting around his insides whenever he thinks about Pete.

Mikey still can’t get the grin off his face when he meets Frank for pizza later that day, much to Frank’s amusement.

“I’m taking credit for you meeting him,” Frank announces.  
Mikey narrows his eyes. “Why?”  
“If I wasn’t an asshole who upset Jamia, you wouldn’t have been in the bar that night and met him.”  
Mikey considers. “Yeah okay. Though you know you’re giving yourself credit for being an asshole?”  
“An asshole you helped you meet a nice guy. A rockstar guy.” Frank winks and looks smug.  
“Yeah I still don’t know if I’ll even see him again. But I’ll give you credit.”

 

*

 

Mikey’s in work the day after Pete leaves when he gets a text from Frank. _dude, is that your cat on the internet?_

Mikey rolls his eyes and replies _you’ll have to be more specific. There’s quite a few cats on the internet._

It’s only a few seconds before Frank sends another text. _On your new boyfriend’s twitter account. Go look._

Mikey rolls his eyes again, mostly at Frank’s use of the word boyfriend. Pete’s not his boyfriend, not his anything really. There’s nothing to say that he will get to see Pete again even if they have been texting almost non-stop since Pete left his apartment. 

He wrinkles his nose at the thought that Frank is winding him up over Pete but clicks into twitter anyway. Sure enough, halfway down his timeline is a picture of Venom, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, staring at the camera all fluffy and big-eyed. Mikey thinks Pete must have taken the photograph before he woke up, because he didn’t notice Pete do it, not that he minds. The caption underneath reads _I made a new friend_. Mikey’s stomach does a little excited flip at Pete’s words. He favourites the tweet and is only slightly weirded out by the fact that several hundred people have also favorited it, it’s just a picture of his cat after all. He sends Frank a text saying that yes, that’s his cat. He doesn’t ask why on earth Frank is stalking Pete on the internet, though.

Frank replies with _dude!_ and then a second reply with many, many smiley faces. Mikey knows that Frank is both teasing him and is actually happy for him that he may have met someone he likes, but it doesn’t stop him from replying to Frank with _all because you were an asshole_

Mikey then texts Pete to tease him for being such a rockstar that he can even make Venom famous on the internet, like there isn’t enough cats there already.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW and some feels.

Mikey thinks that his date went pretty well, and when he and Pete continue to text after it, he knows it did. It’s easy to text Pete, easy to carry out full blown conversations spread over the entire day with him. It’s also easy to forget that he’s far away and not just across the city, so Mikey feels a twist of annoyance in his gut whenever he remembers that he can’t just call Pete up and ask him to come over or suggest they grab a bite to eat on a whim.

He wants to, though.

They text a lot, and Mikey loves it. But he’s thrilled when Pete calls him up later that week as he’s locking up the store. Gerard has already gone home so he just sits in the back room so that he can enjoy his call.

“Working hard Mikeyway?”  
“Yeah I’ve a slave driver of a boss,” Mikey laughs.  
“You should go on strike. Call your union.”  
“I’ll get right on that.”  
“Do. Tell them Pete sent you. So, can I take you out again?”

“I dunno,” Mikey starts. “I’m gonna be pretty busy with my strike, but I guess we could cram in dinner?”  
“Great.” 

“You want to stay at my house without booking a hotel this time?” It’s a legitimate question. Mikey knows it’s not a given, but it feels like there’s a huge chance that they will spend the night together again regardless, so it seems silly to book a hotel when he could just have Pete stay in his bed.  
“I’m not going to turn down an invite like that, am I? I’ll send you on details of when my flight lands. Can’t wait to see you.”

Mikey practically floats home.

 

*

Their date is amazing. It’s even more fun than the last time and Mikey’s starting to feel like he might be in trouble here, and like he might actually be starting to fall for Pete. Just a little.

 

*

 

Pete coming to visit Mikey for a date becomes a regular thing. He comes to New Jersey the following week for another date which goes just as well. After that, every five or six days Pete gets a flight from wherever he is and comes to stay with Mikey, and their dates follow the pattern of dinner and then back to Mikey’s apartment. Apart from the fact that he and Pete are dating more or less in secret – with the exception of close friends and family – it’s just like that early stage on any other relationship. Though Mikey’s finding dating someone who’s not in the same city as him quite difficult.

Each date they get to know each other more, trading small morsels of information and little pieces of themselves.

“I mean, the bass I use on stage is okay. I think it’s pretty cool, but a sparkly one is so badass,” Pete gushes when he sees Mikey’s bass. “I’m kind of jealous.” He runs his finger down the neck and plucks one string. He closes the guitar case and climbs back onto Mikey’s bed.

“I got swag?” Mikey giggles.

“Yeah. You’re putting me to shame.” He kneels at the end of the bed with a quick wistful look towards the bass, and the stretches out on his front, head up close to Mikey’s. They’re both dressed only in underwear. “Can’t believe my day off is almost over again already.”

“Back to the grind?” Though it sounds like anything but that. “What do your bandmates think you do on your days off?”

Pete’s brow crinkles and he looks almost pissed for a second. “They know I come here. You’re not a secret.” He presses a little kiss to the curve of Mikey’s shoulder and his face softens. Mikey knows he is a secret, though. They’ve only seen each other a handful of times and though it’s good so far, it would be far too early for Pete to reveal he’s seeing someone. Especially a man. “Am I a secret?” Pete asks tentatively.

“No. The guys know I’m dating you. Even Gee, though he hasn’t gone into full big brother mode yet.” But he had gone quiet for a few moments when Mikey gave him details of who he was seeing, and Mikey is sure that Gerard has probably googled Pete to check is he should approve or not. Not that that would stop Mikey seeing Pete. Mikey has no reason to keep Pete a secret other than the fact that he could out them if he brags that he’s banging that dude from that band.

They lie together for a while in comfortable silence. Pete has to go soon, Mikey knows that, but Pete is good at leaving things until the last minute and Mikey’s not complaining about the extra time they have together. 

“Oh, I’m trying to source that issue of Spiderman for you, by the way. Number 129, right? I need to find a mint one. The only ones I found so far are dog-eared.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to do that.” Pete rolls onto his back and looks up at Mikey with his big, deep brown eyes. 

Mikey turns himself onto his side and props himself onto one elbow so that he can look down on him. “Come on. I have connections. Best thing about working in a comic book store to be honest.” He drops a little kiss onto Pete’s lips. Pete smiles against it and it seems to change his mind.  
“Okay then. But don’t go to any trouble. What else do you like about working there?”  
“I’m my own boss, or at the worst Gee is my boss. Depends on the day I guess, we take turns. I’ve worked in a book store before but this is different. It’s nice not having someone to tell you what to do.”  
“I get that.”  
“But then on the other side, if I fuck up, I’m fucking it up for me and my dear brother, so there’s pressure there too. We’ve both put our whole lives into it,” Mikey says quietly, and Pete looks serious. “But I guess you probably know about pressure.”  
“Yeah. It’s different though. If I fuck up I can sell my story, do a documentary about musical has-beens and live off the proceeds,” he laughs, though Mikey can hear a tinge of something else behind it.

Mikey glances behind Pete at the alarm clock on the nightstand. “Do we have time for me to give you an orgasm before you go?” He kisses Pete again.

“Another one?” Pete asks, though it doesn’t sound like a complaint. “Think my dick is going to fall off on one of our dates.” It still doesn’t seem like a complaint, though, especially when Pete climbs on top on of Mikey and kisses him, mouth pliant and wet and gorgeous against Mikey’s.  
“Well if you don’t want one-“  
Pete shuts him up with another kiss. “There’s always time for an orgasm. I bet I can come really quickly.”

That makes Mikey laugh into Pete’s mouth as he kisses back. “That’s not really something to brag about.”  
“Maybe not, but you should take it as a compliment.” He trails his hand down Mikey’s chest, fisting the other into Mikey’s hair. “You’re really hot,” he mouths into Mikey’s jaw.  
“Mmm, yeah. Right back at you.” Mikey trails his hands down Pete’s back, feeling the muscles flex under his skin as he moves.  
“No, but you’re really hot. Really, really.”  
“Yeah, like I said, right back at you.” Mikey really likes Pete telling him he’s hot, but he also likes getting his hand inside the back of Pete’s boxers and slipping a finger between the cheeks. Pete like it too and hums, pushing his ass back. “No time to fuck.” Even though that would be amazing right now. ”I’ll blow you.”  
“Whatever you want. I just like orgasms. And in any way you choose fit.”  
“Non-descript orgasms?” Mikey asks, and he knows that’s not what Pete was saying, but he wants Pete to say it. Pete rolls off Mikey’s stomach and lies flat on his back but with his head at the foot of the bed. He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers to pull them down. Mikey takes his own off too, to save time for later of course, and then settles between Pete’s thighs with his own legs bumping against the headboard.

“Not even close. Mikeyway orgasms.”

Mikey smirks at him; that’s what he wanted to hear. He skims his hands down Pete’s sides and over his narrow hips, pausing to thumb over the hollows there. He kisses the flat of Pete’s stomach, first above his belly button, then down over the bartheart – which is both hot and ridiculous at the same time – tracing around the heart shape in quick little licks. The tattoo is so low down that right at the end of it is the start of Pete’s public hair and Mikey breathes in the scent of him.

Mikey used to not enjoy sucking cock. When he’d started out, it felt like a chore; something he had to do to get a blow job in return. Then something clicked and he started to really enjoy it. There’s something incredibly hot about having another guy’s dick in his mouth, to have all that power over how and when a guy comes, and to hear all the appreciative little sounds a guy makes when they’re enjoying it.

Yeah, Mikey likes it, but he especially likes when he’s going down on Pete. Pete gets so unashamedly turned on, and he’s not afraid to talk his way through it, telling Mikey how hot his mouth is, how awesome his tongue is, and he doesn’t keep his voice down when he comes, usually swearing or mumbling or calling Mikey’s name. Mikey’s sure his neighbours must hate Pete already and they’ve only been dating about a month.

Mikey pulls out all his best moves, sucking him hard and taking him deep, and Pete murmurs half formed words that could be a running commentary about how he’s going to be jerking off for the next week thinking of how fucking gorgeous Mikey looks with his mouth stretched around his dick. Or it could be lyrics of a song he’s writing. Mikey can’t tell, and he never gets to ask because then Pete’s coming, arching his hips off the bed and angling his dick down Mikey’s throat with a yell that Mikey’s downstairs elderly and hard of hearing neighbour could even hear with her hearing-aid out.

“Oh Sweet Jesus, Mikey.”  
“So I take it that was okay?” Mikey says with a smirk. He kisses Pete’s stomach just once on his way up and then settles on his back beside Pete.  
“Yeah, I guess it was alright,” Pete says, his eyes still closed and he looks like he’s still basking in post-orgasm bliss. “I’m gonna be feeling that all the way to the airport.”  
“Then I did my job.” Mikey lies there and waits for Pete to reciprocate. He knows that Pete will get him off, Pete’s not a selfish asshole, but Mikey is hard as fuck and doesn’t feel like waiting.  
“Will you call me a cab, please?” Pete asks.  
“Yeah, I will after.”  
“After what?” Pete is incredibly good at looking innocent and Mikey is wise to his ways already. 

He gives Pete a look. “Come _on!_ I’m dying over here.” Mikey indicates to his quite hard dick that really needs some attention after he kindly made Pete come his brains out.  
“Oh,” Pete pouts in a silly, over dramatic way that Mikey would think was cute if he wasn’t feeling so impatient. “You didn’t say I had to return the favour. Sucks to be you.” He makes a ‘too bad’ face, and if he continues winding Mikey up, Mikey’s going to jerk off into Pete’s luggage.

Pete climbs over Mikey and kisses him. “Good thing I’m feeling generous, Mikeyway.” Mikey really likes how they seem to be able to make each other laugh at the same time as making each other come.

“Yeah yeah,” Mikey deadpans but then Pete kisses his neck. Pete starts from just under Mikey’s ear and travels down in wet, messy open-mouthed kisses until he gets to his shoulder where he bites. He’s enthusiastic, not staying one place too long, and never afraid to switch between teeth and tongue and lips.

Pete spits into his palm and with a grin wraps his hand around Mikey’s dick. He pulls in quick, tight strokes and it doesn’t take much; Pete’s pretty good at jerking him off. He gets the pressure perfect (tight and firm), there’s a little swipe of Pete’s thumb over the head on every down stroke, and his calluses drag against Mikey’s skin in the most amazing way. Pete kisses his hard, sucking on his bottom lip and Mikey moans into his mouth and arches into his hand.

Mikey has to break the kiss when he comes, barely able to breath and he’s sure he whites out for a second. Pete kisses him again softly and says, “I’m pretty sure you came quicker than I did, by the way.”

He silently flips Pete off, but it’s lost because Pete ducks his head to mouth and bite and lick at Mikey’s chest, just above his left nipple. When Mikey looks, there’s a deep purple bruise there. Pete gives him another little kiss before heading to the bathroom to prepare to leave. “I’ll be back to see you again before that’s healed, okay?”

That’s more than okay with Mikey.

*

On the fifth time Pete visits, his flight is delayed and they skip dinner altogether in favour of making out with half-dressed, mutual handjobs, followed by ordering a pizza and eating it on the sofa in their underwear, and Mikey is amused by how much of their time together they tend to spend undressed.

They watch Master Chef and critique their pizza in comparison to the one they ate at a little Italian restaurant the week before as if they were judges on the show.

“The cheese is thicker on this one,” Pete says.  
“Yeah but it’s almost too much cheese.”  
“No such thing,” and Pete looks disgusted that Mikey would suggest something so untrue.  
“But it makes the dough a little soggy in the middle.”  
“That’s true,” Pete smiles, tipping his head back so that he can hold the slice above his mouth to catch the trail of melted cheese that’s in danger of dripping down his bare chest. “More pepperoni on the other one.”

“Yeah I‘ll give you that. Marks out of ten?”  
“Seven. Nice, but not the best I ever had. Would we allow this chef back on the show next week or does he face elimination?”  
“I’d have to taste his garlic bread first,” Mikey says, delighted to have the power to control the theoretical fate of a chef on their imaginary version of the show.  
“So we let him cook again. Maybe he can cook us desert?”  
“I think I have ice cream? Peanut butter Ben & Jerry’s?”  
“Then fuck him!”

When they’re done being food critics, they watch a movie and sit slumped with their feet propped up on the end table, and Mikey spends most of the movie tracing the designs on Pete’s tattoo sleeve.

They go to bed late, and only when they’re both exhausted. Mikey wants to squeeze every last drop of time out of their date and considering that Pete is stifling his yawns, it seems he feels the same. 

They sleep spooned together and for too short a time.

When they wake, it’s a little later than intended and Pete almost ends up missing his flight because he insists there’s time to blow Mikey even if there isn’t, and then of course Mikey has to get him off too because they won’t get the chance to do it again for a week.  
“Fuck,” Mikey breathes. “You’re going to miss your flight.” Not that he cares right now, but he will feel responsible later if Pete gets in trouble.  
“Just don’t come on me and I can skip having a shower.”  
“You’re gross.” But Mikey arches his hips up, really not caring if Pete has to go to the airport wearing nothing but a come-smeared bedsheet so long as he doesn’t stop.  
“You know you’re into it.”

And then Pete’s leaving, and Mikey’s apartment feels too big and too empty, even when Venom comes and sits in his lap to console him.

 

*

A jamming session is always fun and Mikey’s really enjoying himself as he and the guys fly through a handful of songs; fast, sweaty numbers and Mikey’s wrecked by the end of them. He throws his body into it, working his fingers over the frets with more force than usual, pumping out the bass chords. They take a quick break, and Frank is quick to tease Mikey. He picks out the chords to a Fall Out Boy song, and the further he gets into the song, the bigger his grin gets. 

“Very funny,” Mikey says and flips him off.  
“I’m hilarious and you know I am, Mikeyway.”  
“Yeah, except you’re not.”  
“I’m just teasing,” Frank says. “You seem happy though.”  
“Maybe I am.” He’s totally happy, but he’s playing it down. Maybe if it all goes wrong it will be easier to get over that way, but Mikey is happy.

Gerard slaps Mikey on the shoulder. “You totally are. I’ve seen you like this before but not for a long time.” He points a finger at Frank. “Leave him alone, you.”

“I’m hilarious,” Frank says again and starts into the intro to another Fall Out Boy song. He only gets a few bars into it before Gerard punches him on the arm. “Fine, I’ll quit it. Is it fun having a rockstar boyfriend, Mikes?”

“Dude, stop. He’s not my boyfriend. But he’s pretty cool.” Mikey does not blush when he thinks about Pete. He absolutely doesn’t. 

“What do you do when he comes to visit?” Franks asks and Mikey grins. It’s a slightly weird question. He knows that Frank is not prying, he’s just curious, but it’s really nothing different to what anyone else does on a date, and not mysterious, glamourous things.

“It’s just normal date stuff. Eating and talking.” And fucking. Every time Pete has stayed with him they can’t keep their hands off each other. There’s a lot of orgasms between them and it’s amazing.

“Boring.”  
“Well last time he stayed we ate pizza and watched Master Chef so I don’t think that really counts as anything exciting or outlandish. It’s not like we were partying till sunup in Jersey’s hottest clubs with models and starlets.”

“Does he tell awesome stories about meeting famous people?”

“Not really, he’s not a name-dropper. He talks about his bandmates a lot, but they’re his friends so doesn’t really count. He has some friends that are famous but they seem to be his actual close friends so not sure if that counts either.” Mikey’s only half lying. Pete doesn’t drop names to make himself sound cool, but he has mentioned a few people by first name who Mikey suspects are real life famous people, like the guy from Midtown.

“Well what’s the _most_ rockstar thing he’s done then?” Frank asks, sounding determined that there must be some cool thing he can hear about.  
“I dunno. He doesn’t really come across like that too often.” He shrugs. Frank looks disappointed and Mikey smiles as he thinks of something. “Oh wait, he gave me underwear. Is that a rockstar thing?”  
“Underwear? I thought groupies gave musicians their underwear, not the other way around?”  
“I’m not a groupie, fuck you.” Mikey throws his guitar pick at Frank and it hits him on the forehead. “And it wasn’t like that. Companies send them stuff so they’ll be seen wearing them. He said some brand or other sent him a load of their stuff and he’s not into it but he thought I would be.”

“Why does no one send me underwear?” Frank says and scowls.  
“I can send you some of Gee’s. ‘Beware; Biohazard’.  
Gerard narrows his eyes at Mikey. “I’m regretting defending you.”  
“Yeah, I’ll get over it.”

They finish the rest of their jam and head for food afterwards. Frank teases Mikey less, mostly because Mikey’s not rising to the bait at all. Though Frank plays three Fall Out Boy songs in a row on the jukebox because he’s an asshole, and Mikey sits there showing Frank his middle finger until all three are finished. 

When Frank and Ray have left, Gerard gives Mikey a very serious look and Mikey knows exactly what’s coming. At the beginning of every relationship that Mikey has ever even considered embarking on, Gerard has given him a little speech about looking after himself. It’s his duty.

“Your life is very different to his, Mikes,” Gerard says. Mikey resists rolling his eyes.  
“I know. Really I do.”

“And long distance relationships are really hard.”  
“I know that too,” Mikey says, trying to keep his voice level. He knows Gerard means well.

“No, but they’re really difficult. Make sure you’re patient with each other. Distance makes everything worse.”  
“I know,” Mikey says again. There isn’t really anything else he can say.

“And he’s like, famous and shit. I know it seems glamourous, but that could be very difficult to get used to if you two end up being serious.”  
“I know.” Must. Not. Roll. Eyes. Because Mikey has thought of all of this already.

“I’m sure it seems very seductive. Anyone could get drawn into that.” There’s concern in Gerard’s voice and it makes Mikey hold his tongue, keeping to himself that he has been thinking about it since day one.  
“I know.”

“Do you love him?”  
Jesus. “Gee-“

“Do you?”  
Mikey hasn’t decided that himself yet. But maybe. “We haven’t even said that too each other. I-“  
“If it’s love, be very careful, okay? I’m just looking out for you.”  
“I know, Gee. I appreciate that.” And then Mikey waits for the next bit which he knows is coming.

“And if he hurts you, I’ll kill him, famous musician or no.” Mikey smiles, because the thought of Gerard killing anyone is ridiculous (especially because Mikey imagines Gerard would do it with comic books or drawing utensils), but he’s said that every time Mikey has entered a relationship with a guy, too.

“I’m happy for you, little brother.”  
“Thanks, big brother.”

“And make sure you’re being careful.” Gerard gives him a look that Mikey knows has nothing to do with not getting hurt emotionally and all to do with basic sex education.  
“Jesus,” he mutters and rolls his eyes this time. “Always have been.” Gerard gives him that little lecture for every new relationship too. Mikey’s a grown up capable of looking after himself, but he knows he means well and it’s sweet that Gerard is still the protective big brother after all these years.

After the first few times Pete stayed over, he started leaving little bits and pieces behind him. At first it was just a toothbrush and a tin of his hair product, and slowly he’s left a few items of clothing behind like underwear and shirts. 

Talking about Pete for half of the evening has made Mikey miss him, so he gets home he pulls on one of Pete’s shirts – a Slayer one – and crawls into bed with Venom purring happily on the other pillow.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter for a little while until I get my shit together.  
> nsfw

“Want to go out to grab something to eat? Or will I order us a Chinese take-out?” Mikey asks.

“No, can I cook you something? I’m not a great cook, but I can do pasta or something? Do you have ingredients?” They’re in Mikey’s kitchen and Pete is just arrived for another date. Mikey’s been fit to burst from excitement all day

Mikey scratches his head and thinks. He should have enough even though he’s not very adventurous when he’s cooking for himself, usually surviving on coffee, bread and take-out. “Yep, there should be basic stuff if it’s not a complex dish?”

Pete slowly shakes his head. “Nope. And hey, if we cook something then we can make out while we cook.” That sounds like a perfect idea to Mikey. It’s not like they can really share kisses while they’re out, even little ones. Pete seems to read his mind. “I wish we could kiss in public. And we will. Just not yet?”

“It’s okay,” Mikey says, and it’s only partially a lie. He’s aware of why they can’t. They haven’t really spoken about it much yet, but it seems to be an unwritten rule. Pete had told him about a previous relationship (or two) that had been very public, including his last girlfriend, a television actress named Katie Something, who dragged his name through the tabloids upon their break up. Pete’s in the public eye, and people are nosy. Add to that, the fact that he’s only publicly dated females in the past, and dating another guy suddenly becomes a big thing. He knows it’s not his decision to make.

But it’s still sometimes hard when Mikey gets the urge to grab his hand or sling his arm around Pete’s shoulder when they’re out. It’s not like he wants to dry hump him in the middle of the street, but sometimes he’d like _something_.

“No, I mean it, though. I know it’s shitty. But it’s easier this way for a little while at least.” Pete kisses his cheek and then his lips. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Mikey says. Because as much as it might suck to not get to kiss Pete in public, he still gets to kiss him when they’re in private, which is good enough.

Pete’s cooking is more than fine, especially considering the limited ingredients they have to work with. The eat it sprawled lazily on the couch and afterwards they fuck on the couch, even more lazily. Mikey pins Pete’s arms to the cushions over his head, holding him down, and Pete writhes and moans underneath him. After cleaning up, they crawl into Mikey’s bed.

“I can’t come next week. Shit tons of stuff to do. We don’t have time enough off for me to make it here and back without missing it.”

“Oh,” Mikey says. His chest feels a little hollow at that thought. His and Pete’s dates have become a delightful routine for him, so the thought of missing out on one is disheartening.  
“Yeah. I’ll be in Japan. Not even in the country.”  
“Japan sounds cool,” Mikey says, hoping he sounds less disappointed than he feels.  
“It is. But I’ll get back here when I check the schedule again properly and maybe I can move stuff. Sorry.” He kisses Mikey on the temple and Mikey feels a little better.  
“Don’t be sorry. Can’t be helped. Whenever you can come back it’ll be awesome. I’ll make sure we have better ingredients so that me and Venom can cook for you.”  
“You better. Cat hair in my food is my favourite.”

 

*

 

Mikey’s phone vibrates and wakes him. He answers it without really looking at it. 

“Sex is weird, right?”  
“Morning, Pete.” Mikey rubs his eyes. It’s morning but too early to be awake yet. He’s getting used to phone calls at odd hours with Pete, and sometimes odd phone calls. “You mean when we have sex? Or sex in general?”  
“Sex in general. When we have sex it’s awesome,” Pete says. Like there could be any other answer.  
“Sex is weird how?”  
“Like, recreational sex. It’s like ‘I like you enough that I want you to put a part of your body inside one of mine.’”  
“You make it sound so hot,” Mikey giggles.

Pete laughs. “Yeah I know. It’s just weird when you break it down.”  
“Broken down, hot, weird sex.”  
“Yeah.”

“So how’s Japan?” Mikey rolls over so that he’s on his stomach, phone just about balancing on his shoulder.  
“It’s an amazing country. You gotta come here sometime.”  
“Maybe I will. What time is it there now?” Even though he’s pleased to talk to Pete, he knows it’s very early in Jersey.  
“I don’t even know anymore. Jet lag and time changes, and I have my wrist watch set to New Jersey time so I know when I can call you.”  
“You’re crazy,” Mikey laughs. Though it kind of makes sense, and Mikey should do something similar so he knows when Pete might be awake or asleep. 

“Yep. Hey, I miss you.”

“Yeah me too. Venom isn’t as good at critiquing pizza. Complains there’s not enough tuna on them.” Pete laughs and Mikey misses him more, wants to feel Pete’s breath on his skin when he laughs and not just down a phone line.

“Anything you’d like from Japan?”  
“No idea. A surprise?”  
“A surprise it is. I’ll get you something good.” 

Later that day Mikey checks his twitter. He’s starting to use it a little more than he used to, and mostly because with Pete using his so much, it’s like a tiny, extra glimpse into his day. When Mikey checks it today he has a shit ton of notifications and can’t figure why until he scrolls down and sees that Pete has put a picture of some Green Tea Kitkats up. This is nothing particularly out of the ordinary, Pete updates it with all sorts of things, but what’s different this time is that the caption that comes with it reads _picked up these awesome KitKats for my friend @MikeyFuckingW_

It’s the first time that Pete has mentioned him or communicated with him at all via the internet, and directly, not just cryptic cat pictures. It feels nice, even if no one else knows about Mikey. 

The notifications are mostly replies to Pete’s tweet that he has been copied in on, and are mostly with his fans saying hello, asking for a follow, or commenting on how they want candy too, whatever. There’s a few slightly more unsettling replies such as asking who the fuck is Mikey to get KitKats, or general strange comments to Pete, and some are even explicit. Mikey chooses to blatantly ignore them and just closes Twitter immediately.

Mikey’s never had too much interest in social media, only using it a little, and just to share videos, articles or interesting things. Pete makes it look cool and easy. Most of his posts seem to be a mix of marketing for Fall Out Boy stuff, pictures of himself and intriguing things he finds on his travels, or general random thoughts. His followers eat them up, revelling in his motivational words and funny little jokes. He’s lucky to have such dedicated fans and it makes Mikey smile to see him so loved, mostly because he’s starting to fall hopelessly in love with him too.

 

*  
One of the many things that’s hard about a long distance relationship, especially a blossoming one, is that that initial part where you can’t keep your hands off the other person. It’s the time of constant touching and kissing and fucking, and that’s pretty hard when the person that you want to touch and kiss and fuck is in a whole other state and sometimes a whole other country.

When they get to see each other, they spend a fair amount of time making up for their time apart, but it’s not always enough to contain it within Pete’s visits. Sometimes it spills out into text messages, like quick little dirty thoughts put into words, or promises of what’s to come when they’re together.

Sometimes they send each other pictures. Not nudes, or anything too explicit, but teases, or tastes of what to expect on Pete’s next visit. Pete sends Mikey a close up picture of him biting down on his lip which is ridiculously hot, and Mikey sends one back of him sucking on two fingers. Pete sends one of his lower torso where either he’s not wearing any underwear or they’re pushed down very low out of frame, and Mikey sends him a close up of the waistband of his jeans, top button open and his hand inside. 

Pete says they should stop then before they get out of hand, but before long he sends Mikey a picture of himself in the bath, naked and wet, from mid chest up, with a caption ‘bath is too big without you’. After that they’re back to sending little suggestive pictures whether they’re likely to get out of hand or not.

Other time’s there’s phone calls. The first such phone call comes when Mikey is holed up in the little office at work going through inventory and receipts and reports and all manner of brain meltingly boring stuff. It’s the less fun side of running a comic book store, but it has to be done. His phone rings and he smiles when he sees Pete’s name shine up on the screen.

“Hey you,” he says, and there’s no immediate answer from Pete, just a muffled sound of someone moving around. “Pete?” he says. Maybe Pete pocket-dialled him. It happens. Or maybe Pete started a phone call and got dragged away without being able to hit the cancel button. That happens too.

Then Mikey hears it. It’s the sound of breathing. Not that clichéd heavy breathing that’s done in the movies, just a hitch in breath. And then, “Mikes.”

“You okay?”  
“Uh huh. So good.”  
“What you up to?” Mikey asks, because Pete sounds a little strange.  
“Just wanted to hear your voice, miss you.” But the last word ends up sounding a little strangled. There’s another muffled sound and then Pete’s breath catches again followed by a soft sigh, and Mikey suddenly gets it.  
“Pete. Are you-“  
“Yeah, a little.”

“Oh god.” A spark of pleasure runs through Mikey and heads all the way to his dick which is now very interested in the phone conversation. “You can’t jerk off a little. You’re either jerking off or you’re not.”  
“Oh, I’m so jerking off.” Pete’s voice is rough and breathy and it’s zipping right through Mikey. Oh Fuck. “I’m in a hotel bed, naked and hard and I miss you.”

“Oh god.” Mikey swallows down a groan. He can’t do this here. Apart from the fact that they had surveillance cameras set up in the office and the store room after a break in a few years back, he just can’t do it here. It feels slightly wrong. “I’m at work, Pete.”

He presses the heel of his hand against his crotch in the hopes that it will take the edge off, and it does, but not for long. Pete sounds gorgeous, and Mikey can imagine how hot he looks, all spread out on the bed with his hand on his cock, shiny with sweat and making a really turned on face, probably with his bottom lip caught between his teeth like he does when he’s close. He wishes he was there with him.

“Wish that was my hand on you,” Mikey says and Pete moans.

Mikey thumps his forehead down onto the desk, and groans in frustration. Pete mistakes Mikey’s groan for one of pleasure and chokes out another moan of his own, obviously coming. He breaths hard down the phone and Mikey’s never been so turned on at work before, and with no way to relieve himself.

“I hope you’re happy, I have a massive boner, Wentz.”

“Think of lots of naked grandma’s. All dancing around,” Pete finally says, though it takes a minute for him to answer. Mikey bumps his head against the desk again, because Pete sounds far too amused.

“I hate you.”  
“You don’t. Call me when you get home and I’ll talk dirty to you to make up for it.”  
“I hate you,” Mikey replies, but that’s the furthest thing from the truth right now.

*

Pete’s makes good on his promise when Mikey calls him after work, but it’s the most frustrating day of Mikey’s life. It’s almost worth it when he hears all the wonderfully filthy things that Pete says he’s going to do to him when they next see each other. Almost.

*

Pete calls Mikey one morning right before he leaves for work. He checks his watch knowing he should leave now if he wants to make it on time and avoid a stern look from Gerard, but he also hasn’t spoken to Pete in a whole day so he sits back down on the edge of his bed.

"Hey so I know we missed a date this week." Pete sounds cheerful for the morning, but then Mikey’s not sure what time it is wherever Pete is now, so it may not be morning for him at all.

“Yeah you and your stupid successful career. You should be a deadbeat nerd like me,” Mikey deadpans.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I’m quitting tomorrow, I swear,” Pete laughs.  
“You better.”  
“Well what would you say to me coming to see you for more than a day? Like a few days?” Pete asks, and Mikey grins down the phone. More than one day with Pete is something that he hasn’t gotten to do yet. He’s excited. 

“Sounds good to me.”

“I’ll stay in a hotel, somewhere nearby maybe, I don’t want to put you out. It’s a long visit.” Pete’s not fishing for an invite, Mikey knows that. He wants Pete to stay with him, and sure they will go from a single date and Pete staying overnight to Almost-Living-Together for a few days, but there’s no way that Mikey wants him staying in a hotel, far away, not in his bed. They do enough of that already.

“No, that’s silly. Just stay with me. If you want, I mean.”  
“Really?” Pete sounds surprised and pleased.  
“Yeah of course. A hotel is a waste. When are you coming?”  
“A week on Friday? Would that be okay?”

“Yeah,” Mikey says, thrilled. That’s really soon. His brain is running through all the cool things they can do when Pete comes. But he also know that Gerard has been not so subtly saying that Mikey has been hiding Pete. “Warning though. If you’re coming for a few days, Gee is probably going to want to meet you. Do you think that’s too scary?”

“Terrifying. But should be okay.”  
“Great. I can take a few days off work but I’ll have to work some of them too. You can amuse yourself?”  
“With Venom the Amazing and the awesome things to see in New Jersey? Sure!” 

By now Mikey is flying flat on his back and he’s still not ready to go to work, and he’s going to be a little late for sure. He reluctantly sits back up and starts gathering the things he needs; shoes, keys, jacket, still holding the phone pressed close between his ear and his shoulder so that he can keep Pete on the line as long as possible.

“I have to go. Very late for work now.” He can already imagine Gerard’s stern look, though now he doesn’t care at all.

“Isn’t there allowances for when your boyfriend is far away?” Pete sounds sad, and Mikey feels it too.  
Mikey grins and maybe blushes a little. “Boyfriend? Are we boyfriends?”  
“Well, I guess so,” Pete says cautiously. And then more confidently, “I think of you as my boyfriend anyway.”  
“Awesome, me too.”

He stops in the hallway, sorry that they’re having a conversation such as this over phone and also while he’s in a rush. It’s something that would be nicer if it was face to face so he could look Pete in the eye, and kiss him afterwards.

“So I do really have to go now.”  
“Fine. Leave me hanging. I have to go pretend I give a shit when people ask me questions. I’d rather you ask me questions.” Mikey laughs. Pete makes it sounds like a chore, but he knows he loves it. ”Call me later?”

“Promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm [here](http://thislossofsleep.tumblr.com//) on tumblr (extra fangirling blog) <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lots of fluff. fluff overload.
> 
> Many, many thanks to the wonderful [Immoral Crow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/pseuds/immoral_crow) for much needed beta help. Any post beta mistakes are mine.

Mikey can’t sit still for the entire day when he knows Pete is coming that evening. He drives Gerard to distraction for most of the afternoon giving him hourly updates of Pete’s schedule for the day. 

“He should be heading to the airport now, I guess,” Mikey says, almost offhand, like he hasn’t been clock watching all day. Gerard is elbow deep in order forms so he gives Mikey a smile but he can’t commit to much more than that. Mikey’s leaving him short staffed, and while Gerard says it’s fine, it still means the store is really, really busy.

“Pete’s at the airport by now, I guess. Maybe checking in,” Mikey says an hour or so later. He’s working his way through the list of special order comics and graphic novels and adding each one to the regular orders that Gerard has already done .

Gerard glances at the clock on the register screen and shrugs. “I guess so , yeah. You going to do a running commentary?”  
“Probably.” Mikey down puts his pen and stretches. “If I go get us coffee , can I keep babbling about him?  
“You can keep babbling about him anyway. It’s nice to see you so happy. And remember how much I couldn’t shut up about Lindsay when I met her ?” And yeah, Mikey remembers how awesome it was to see Gerard so crazy happy. “I guess it’s hard in a long distance relationship?”

“Yeah it sucks. I sometimes forget and I think, ‘oh hey, I’ll see if Pete maybe wants to get pizza later.’ Except he’s in fucking England or something, so if he’s getting pizza it’s not with me.”  
“Skype pizza date?” Gerard offers, and Mikey smiles that he’s trying to be helpful.  
“Yeah we’ve done that. But it’s not the same at all.”  
“No goodnight kiss?”  
“No _nothing_.” And that contains a multitude that Mikey’s not saying, but Gerard knows because they overshare all the time without meaning to. 

Gerard just raises his eyebrows in reply and says, “Babble away. But I won’t say no to a coffee.”

“Cool. I’ll run out when I get these sent.” He picks up the pen and stares at the clock, thinking again how today is probably the longest day in the history of the universe. Usually busy days go faster than days when he has nothing to do but today is dragging its heels like a motherfucker.

“So Pete’s flying now,” Mikey says later, still trying to tone down the excitement in his voice. Pete is flying halfway across the country so he’ll be in the air for a while.

“Do you want to go early?”

Mikey really, really wants to leave early. He makes a face involuntarily. “No, its fine. We have lots to do.”  
“Mikes , just go.”  
“Really?” 

“Go. Start your weekend early. You deserve to have a nice time. Go, go, go,” he says and starts ushering Mikey in the direction of the back room to get his things. Mikey thinks it’s probably more to do with not having to listen to him talk non-stop about Pete than anything else, but he’s not going to argue over it if it means he’s getting out of here _right now_.

Mikey is back in his apartment and hanging out with Venom trying desperately not to clock-watch again when Pete calls from a cab to say he’s nearly there. If Mikey could, he’d pick Venom up and make her do a little happy dance with him, but she’s looking at him with disdain like she often does, simply because she’s a cat .

Mikey’s heart skips many beats when the buzzer goes and Pete is downstairs. He greets Pete at the door with a mile-wide grin and falls into his open arms as Pete almost throws his suitcase down the hall and presses Mikey against the wall for a kiss, warm and familiar. It’s almost worth not seeing him in so long for an entrance like this, and Mikey is breathless by the time Pete pulls away. 

“Hey,” Pete says and kisses Mikey again.  
“Hey there.”

After preliminary chit chat they can finally begin to plan their few days together. “Six days actually,” Pete says, and while six days sounds like a lot of time to suddenly spend living together, Mikey is certain that it will pass in a heartbeat. 

Pete takes his hand, and Mikey asks, “So what should we do first?”  
“You’re off work tomorrow?”  
“Yep.” Mikey only had to promise Frank three different favours to get him to cover for him, considering it’s a Saturday (and considering Frank doesn’t actually work in the store).  
“Well then, naked cuddling then food, or food then naked cuddling. Flip a coin. I don’t care which we do first. Then we make a fort and stay in it for most of tomorrow with more naked cuddling and food. Plan?”  
“I like your plan.”  
“After that you can show me some Jersey stuff, we can meet your friends and brother I can traumatise them by being obnoxious, then more Jersey stuff. All with lots more food and naked cuddling. Sound good?”  
“You have it all worked out. I like it.”

Pete leans in and kisses him, grinning. The kiss deepens, and Pete’s tongue and hands begin to wander, and it’s been far too long since Mikey got to do this. He leans all the way over to kiss Pete properly, and so that he can press his body against Pete as he does. He pulls back, but it’s only to say, “Naked cuddling should be first.”

Pete licks his cheek. “Thought you’d never ask.”

 

*

 

It feels oddly domestic to spend almost a week with Pete living together, but in a really nice way. There’s a comfort to it that warms Mikey’s heart. 

On the days that Mikey works, Pete gets up with him and they grab a coffee together in a little place near Mikey’s apartment, then Mikey goes off to the comic book store and Pete heads back to the apartment to do whatever he needs to do.

On days Mikey’s not working, there’s not a lot of moving done before midday, and it feels like a wonderful luxury to have Pete here with him without a timer ticking down to when his flight departs. Those days are very lazy, but Mikey shows Pete a few cool things, and even brings him back to the little place where they first had breakfast together. He brings him by Killjoys too, but only briefly. 

Pete gushes over how awesome it is, and looks around with wide eyes, skimming his finger down the spine of graphic novels like they’re made of gold. It gives Mikey butterflies in his stomach to see Pete so impressed, even if Mikey suspects that some of it is done for his benefit. 

Mikey introduces him to Gerard, and Gerard invites them both over for dinner like Mikey knew he would, but it’s all over very quickly and Mikey squeezes Pete’s hand when no one is looking to give him a little bit of support. Meeting the family and friends of someone you’re dating is daunting and he knows it.

The first evening that Mikey comes home from work that Pete is staying with him, Pete surprises him by cooking. The food smells divine, and he’s clearly gone to a lot of trouble. He’s set the table nicely, and must have even bought candles and flowers for it, because Mikey doesn’t own any candles and never has flowers displayed because Venom likes to knock them over or try to eat them.

“Honey, you’re home,” Pete says. His tone is joking but there’s a lot of affection too as he kisses Mikey on the cheek and then Mikey kisses him quickly on the mouth.  
“I am. You’ve been busy. What is all this?”  
“Cooking for my man who’s been working hard all day.”  
“That’s really sweet,” Mikey says and kisses Pete again, slowly this time, properly. “You didn’t have to do that you know. We could have just gotten take out.”  
“Yeah but that’s not as fun.”  
“Wanna show me what you’re cooking or is it a surprise?”

“It’s pretty much done.” Pete takes him by the hand to walk across the kitchen and points at the oven where there’s a huge dish – that Mikey doesn’t remember owning – full to the brim with something that’s bubbling gently and browning at the edges. ”I made lasagne which is fucking huge. I hope you have room in your freezer because I don’t think we would finish it even if we ate it every day for the rest of the week.” He then pulls Mikey over to the refrigerator and opens it. He points to a plate with a pile of brownies.  
“Call me Suzie Fucking Homemaker. I baked.”  
“Brownies?”  
“Peanut butter brownies.” Pete doesn’t ask Mikey if he wants one, just picks it up and shovels it into Mikey’s mouth and Mikey would object but, holy shit, they’re good. “You made these?” Mikey is impressed.  
“What the fuck else am I going to do all day while my man in at work?”  
“I dunno. But I didn’t think this. I’ll give you chores to do tomorrow if you’re bored.”

Pete’s not a bad cook, but while his peanut butter treats are heaven, his lasagna is about fifty percent cheese sauce. Mikey’s not complaining though, and as a whole, dinner is wonderful and it’s incredible to have Pete like this, relaxed and in his house and knowing that he doesn’t have to leave at ass o’clock in the morning to get on a plane.

“Gonna be so fat by the time I have to fly again,” Pete says and pats his belly. “Totally worth it though.” They’re full and content, and have moved from the kitchen to the sofa. Pete’s a solid warmth pressed against him and Mikey has Pete’s hand in his.  
“Homemade food and being so full you can’t move? Just like the glamour of life on the road?”  
“Completely the opposite.”

“You mean you don’t cook lasagna and brownies for your bandmates every night?” He strokes his thumb over Pete’s knuckles.  
“If I tried I’d probably set the bus on fire. The kitchen is about this big.” He draws a small square on Mikey’s thigh with his finger. “There isn’t a lot of home cooking. We do our best, but it’s usually either stuff out of packets or we eat out.”  
“That sounds okay though.”  
“Yeah, but after a while the novelty wears off and you get sick of eating potato chips and cereal. It’s nice to have a change.” Mikey’s chest tingles. Pete seems to be enjoying this bit of domesticity as much as Mikey is, and it feels really good.

“You really too full to move?” Pete asks.  
“Maybe. What you got in mind?” 

But Pete is already leaning in to kiss him. “Need to burn off some of the seven thousand calories we ate this evening so I can still fit into my stage gear,” he says and leers at Mikey.

Mikey pulls him in to kisses him, and Pete’s lips are as warm and inviting as ever. It’s so easy to pull him closer, kiss him deeper, and Mikey tugs on Pete’s sweater so that Pete climbs over to straddle him. Pete kisses him harder, threads his hands into Mikey’s hair and holds on. Mikey runs his hands over Pete’s thighs and then carries on up and under his sweater to all that deliciously soft skin underneath.

Mikey hums as he pulls Pete’s sweater up and off.  
“Bet you don’t get to do this on tour either.”  
“Fuck, nope. Wish I did.”

Afterwards, they lie together on the couch, messy and undressed and Mikey can’t remember the last time he was this happy. He knows it’s going to be very difficult when he has to go back to only seeing Pete once a week.

 

*

Mikey lets himself in, Frank trailing behind him. They’re only there for Mikey to drop his things off and to pick up Pete. When they enter the living room, not only is Pete not ready yet, but he’s sprawled on the sofa in just a pair of running shorts, pouring over his laptop. Thankfully Frank had met Pete the day before when he called over to drop something off, because it’s not the ideal first impression.

“So you’re ready to go then?” Mikey laughs.  
“Yeah this look is all the rage in LA, I’ll have you know,” Pete laughs and then folds his laptop closed. “Sorry. Time got away from me. I went for a run and had some work stuff to get done when I got back. Lost track of time.” He gets up heading for the door, and gives Mikey a quick kiss on the cheek. “Give me fifteen minutes?”

Mikey nods, it’s not like he has a choice anyway. He’s not about to make Pete leave the house all sweaty and disgusting.

Frank sits down on the sofa and Mikey sits beside him. He knows already that Pete’s version of fifteen minutes will be most likely closer to thirty minutes and he may as well get comfortable. 

“Work stuff?” Frank asks. “What sort of work stuff do famous people do on a laptop?”  
“I duno. Writing? Blogging? Important emails? Could be anything.”  
Frank eyes Pete’s closed laptop which is sitting on Mikey’s coffee table. “Do you think it has top secret rockstar stuff on it?”  
“Maybe,” Mikey smiles. “Mostly I just see him using it to rule his social media empire.”  
“Update his minions?”  
“Yeah.”

They click onto Pete’s Instagram on Frank’s phone and see a photograph of Pete sitting on Mikey’s sofa in more or less the state he was in when they found him; shirtless and unwashed, but this time making a growling face for the camera with the caption _too busy to shower_ , and it has several thousand likes and comments on it which make Mikey’s eyes go wide. He’s fairly sure if he uploaded the same picture but of himself, it would get one solitary like, and it would be from Gerard and out of brotherly loyalty, or pity.

Pete reappears exactly thirty two minutes later, but Mikey can’t be mad at him; he looks gorgeous. He’s wearing dark jeans, a metal t-shirt similar to the one he wore when they first met, and he smells clean and delicious. He corners Mikey in the hallway while Frank is calling Gerard to let them know they’re on the way.

“Should I change?” Pete says, gesturing to what he’s wearing. “Is this okay?”  
“Yeah, it’s fine. Ready?”  
“It’s not too, like, casual or something?” He looks a little worried and it’s then that Mikey realises that he’s probably actually nervous about this evening.  
“You’re nervous. Don’t be. It’s just dinner.”  
“I’m fairly sure I’m going to make an ass of myself,” Pete says and he grimaces. Mikey kisses him quickly and stokes his thumb over Pete’s cheekbone.

“How can you be nervous meeting just my stupid friends when you stand in front of thousands of people on a daily basis. Or go on live TV.”  
“Fuck, it’s so different. I can’t explain it. Just, look after me, okay? Don’t abandon me or I’ll end up making a dick out of myself somehow, I just know it.” Mikey gives him a little nod and squeezes his hand in reply. “I don’t want your brother to hate me.”  
“He won’t.”

No one hates Pete, not even close, though they’re a little cautious of him at the start of the evening , as if he’s a mysterious being. 

Gerard is in big brother mode, so he’s quiet, eyeing Pete like he’s trying to figure him out. Once Mikey sets up a conversation between all of them about comics and graphic novels and Pete can hold his own, Gerard seems to let his guard down, because surely anyone who can name obscure super heroes is trustworthy, obviously.

Pete is tense and almost giddy because of it. He’s not obnoxious, but his laugh sounds a little forced; Mikey can tell he’s nervous, but he visibly relaxes more and more as the evening goes on.

Frank was warned to be on his best behaviour, and Mikey even threatened to confiscate his precious guitar, Pansy, and give it to Venom as a scratching post. He’s been told to keep away from any topics of conversation that might embarrass Pete, or embarrass Mikey himself, because Frank would be very, very good at doing either. Not that a warning matters a damn, of course.

“Pete, you know that Mikey and I used to live together?” Frank asks with more than a glint of mischief in his eyes.  
“I did not know that,” Pete says and eyes Mikey for some reassurance. Pete is quiet cute when he’s nervous.  
“Yeah,” Mikey chimes in. “We had this pokey little apartment that we never cleaned.”  
Pete laughs. “Really?”  
“Yeah it was pretty gross,” Frank says, grinning like an evil cartoon villain. “But I have some detailed info on Mikey. Sensitive details that only a roommate would know.”  
“Or a sibling,” Gerard adds. And what the fuck is this, pick on Mikey day?  
“Yeah, but Pete doesn’t want to know about that,” Mikey says half-heartedly, knowing full well that Pete will absolutely want to know stupid stories about him.  
“I want to know a little,” Pete considers, and Mikey narrows his eyes at him.

“Well,” Frank starts. “This one time, he brought a space heater into the bathroom with him.”

Pete turns to Mikey for reassurance again and looks as though he’s waiting for Mikey to correct the story. 

“It was cold,” Mikey says. And it was just one time. 

Pete looks like he’s trying desperately not to laugh. 

“Mikey’s a clever guy,” Gerard says to Pete, looking serious. “But he’s a little ditzy sometimes.”  
“Hey, fuck you,” Mikey says, though his tone is playful. “What the fuck ever happened to sibling loyalty? I have stories about you guys too you know.”  
“Yeah but Pete doesn’t care about those,” Frank says. Pete shrugs and smiles at Mikey, all innocence. He’s clearly enjoying himself. Bastard. 

Mikey turns to Frank, because if he’s going down, he’s taking them all with him. ”What about when you forgot your keys and climbed in a tiny window that was almost too tiny even for you and you got stuck?” 

Pete giggles though he looks like he’s trying not to.

“Nah, that’s not as good at all.” Frank shakes his head and turns to Pete again. “Mikey stuck a fork in a toaster once, too.”  
“Come on!” Everyone does that sometimes, Mikey’s sure of it.

Frank giggles. Gerard looks so solemn when he speaks. “You think Venom is just a cat, Pete, but really she’s a very small and fluffy health and safety inspector who goes around turning off the stove and unplugging things. He’d never survive without her.” 

Mikey can’t not laugh at that one. “That’s true actually. She’s employed by Gerard to make sure I make it to work in one piece. But I think that’s enough stories for Pete for today?”  
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Pete says, and gives Mikey a little wink. “I’m having a great time.”

“Really Mikey’s a good guy. He’s like our collective little brother,” Ray says.  
“Even if he’s older than me,” adds Frank.  
“Which makes no sense,” Mikey says. “But I guess they’re all like my brothers. 

“Mikey has weird knees,” Frank says, ruining their little sentimental moment.  
“What the fuck has that got to do with anything?” Mikey says, aghast, and Pete is openly laughing now, the traitor. “Actually fuck that,” Mikey adds. “You’re all jerks. Except maybe Ray who’s helping to cook and therefor redeeming himself. But you’re all jerks. Pete, I have no friends. And I’m an only child. Did I tell you?”

Pete is a hit all around, and Mikey couldn’t have imagined it going any better. He’s both relieved and pleased at how much fun the rest of the night is.

When dinner is over and he and Pete are heading back home, they dissect the evening.

“They all liked you.”  
“Good. I like them. You have cool friends. Your brother is awesome too.”  
“I saw him have a word with you. Did he give you a ‘look after my little brother’ speech? He does it to anyone I date. It’s his job as an over protective older sibling.” Pete wrinkles his nose. Mikey takes that as a yes. “Did he tell you to use protection?” Pete makes a face. That’s another yes and Mikey laughs. “Oh god. He means well.”

“I know. It’s cool.”

It’s dark out so Mikey gets away with planting a kiss on Pete’s cheek because he deserves it after that.

 

*

Mikey takes Pete to a special midnight screening of Dawn of the Dead and the showing is not even half full so they spend most of it eating popcorn, whispering jokes to each other and kissing, knowing that it’s dark enough for anybody to see them. 

In the lobby afterwards, a girl approaches Pete and asks for him to take a photo with her. Pete happily obliges and Mikey tries not to look to awkward when she openly flirts with him. 

Mikey’s not the most jealous guy in the world but it’s not thing nicest thing to watch and there’s a small part of him that wants to yell _leave him alone, he’s with me_. If he and Pete weren’t keeping things quiet they’d be holding hands already and people would know that Pete was with Mikey and not for flirting with. 

Somehow with all the time that he and Pete spent holed up in Mikey’s apartment alone, he’s forgotten that he has to share Pete with everyone; fans, press, the world. It’s a little daunting. He takes a breath and keeps a steady distance from Pete and the girl, reminding himself to be a grownup about this, it’s harmless flirting. That’s all.

“What are you doing in New Jersey?” she asks. Mikey watches her as she gazes lovingly at Pete, her bright green eyes are wide and her cheeks are flushed, and she looks like her day has been made by attempting to make a move on him.  
“Just hanging out,” Pete says and he’s still sounding polite and friendly, but his body language says he wants to go.  
“If you’re here for a few days and you’re not too busy, you should let me take you out,” she says and places her hand on his forearm. It’s a big flirty move and Mikey internally cringes. Pete doesn’t seem fazed, but then he must get this all the time.

“Ah. No. Don’t think so.”  
“You don’t have time?” she asks, still sounding so hopeful.  
“It’s not that.”  
“But you’re single, right?” she asks.  
Pete doesn’t look at Mikey but his expression shifts, and he resolutely says, “No, I’m not.”  
“Oh,” She snatches her hand off his arm quickly, and she sounds embarrassed rather than pissed off. “I read something recently that said you are.”  
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read,” Pete says, and he’s not being mean; Mikey knows Pete has been saying he’s single to throw people off. 

She makes her apologies, looking downright mortified, and slinks away.

“You broke that poor girl’s heart,” Mikey says, deciding to make a joke about it rather than admit his discomfort over what he just saw. “She thought she had a chance with you. Evil rockstar giving people false hope.”  
“Well, I can go make out with her if you want?” Pete says and he bumps Mikey’s shoulder.  
“Not what I meant, but I dare you,” Mikey counters, calling Pete’s bluff.  
“Yeah maybe not.” 

When they get back to Mikey’s, Pete crawls into bed while Mikey is locking up the apartment and switching off the lights. When Mikey gets to the door of his bedroom, the sight in front of him makes him smile. Pete is sitting up in bed with his shirt already off and the bed covers over his legs. Venom is sitting happily, deeply purring, in Pete’s lap while Pete scratches under her chin.

“I feel like I’ve seen this image before.”

Pete stares up at him with a questioning look.

“You look like one of those posters that would end up in a girl’s locker. You know the ones with the male model, posing all sexy with his shirt off, and cuddling a puppy or a baby or something. The caption would read, ‘Tough, but gentle,’ or something cheesy,” he says.

“Fuck off! I do not!” Pete laughs, and Mikey thinks he even looks a little shy.  
“You do! How do you not know what you look like?” Mikey asks, because Pete is seriously pretty. “It should be a black and white photo though.”

“Take a picture,” Pete says. Mikey frowns a little and then Pete hands him his phone. ”Please? I want a picture of the day Mikeyway said I look like a male model. It’s good for my ego .”

Mikey laughs because Pete takes quite a few photos of himself, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all, but they’re probably all good for his ego. He takes the phone anyway and takes three photos for Pete; one of Pete looking down at the cat, one of him looking seductively into the camera, which only sort of looks like a mocking pose, and one with a silly face and his tongue sticking out which would seduce no one.

He hands the phone back to Pete and climbs in beside him, and Venom takes up her usual spot at Mikey’s feet at the end of the bed, still purring happily.

Mikey switches off the lamp beside him and burrows down under the covers. Pete lines up beside him and wraps an arm around his waist, and Mikey links his fingers in with Pete’s. They lie in the darkness, and Mikey knows that Pete is terrible at sleeping, and that touring and travelling and working odd hours don’t help one bit. He feels a warmth in his chest knowing that Pete is trying really hard to keep some sort of sleep schedule while he’s here, and that it’s for Mikey’s sake, not his own.

When Mikey checks his twitter the next day while he’s at work, Pete has uploaded a new picture, and it’s one that contains Mikey’s bedroom, bed and cat. It’s the picture that Mikey took of him, not the seductive one or the silly one, the one of him looking away from the camera at Venom, except now it has a black and white filter over it. The caption under it reads _my new friend is awesome_. Mikey’s not sure if the friend that Pete is referring to is him or the cat but it makes him smile anyway, even if it’s very odd to see his bed all over the internet with fans commenting on both it and Venom.

He gives in to temptation and has a look at some of the comments left on the photo, and they are anything ranging from ones being nice and talking about the cute cat, to remarks on Pete’s body, to a few that are just plain weird. 

He quickly clicks out of twitter, wishing he hadn’t checked out the comments at all, and texts Pete to ask if Venom is famous enough that she needs her own twitter account yet. 

Pete replies with _Soon. Thn I get hr a recrd deal_.

*

“Don’t want to go.” 

It’s their last morning together. Pete is sulking, and Mikey wants to sulk too. Their almost-week together was incredible. Any apprehension that Mikey had about suddenly spending so much time together evaporated after the first day and they had a great time. The only time Mikey left Pete’s side was when he had to work, which wasn’t very much in the end.

Mikey’s not sure how he’s going to cope with sleeping alone after being spoilt rotten having Pete in his bed, or cope with not having Pete there at all. He hasn’t prepared himself. 

They haven’t moved from Mikey’s bed yet. “I don’t want you to go either,” he says sadly. “But you have to.”

He pulls the bedcovers up over his head and repeats, “Don’t want to,” though it’s muffled this time.

“Okay, but when the rest of your band and your management show up at my door with pitch forks, I’m telling them it was your idea.” 

“You could come with me?” Pete says, pulling the covers back so Mikey can see his face again. They’ve never really spoken about the possibility of Mikey going to see Pete, so far it’s just been Pete showing up at his house, but it might make sense. 

“I can’t. I can’t just leave with no notice. I have the store and an apartment and a cat who will never forgive me.” Pete frowns and Mikey brushes his thumb over Pete’s eyebrows to rub the furrow away. “Maybe I can another time though? When we plan it more than three hours in advance?”

That seems to make Pete happy and take most of the creases out of his brow. “Good,” he says.  
“You still have to get up now though.”  
“Will you dress me?”  
“You know, Pete, I’m really better at getting you undressed.”

Pete grins and after kissing Mikey he finally gets himself out of bed. Mikey watches him rifle through his half packed suitcase looking for clean clothes, and he wonders where the hell the last week went because his time with Pete passed far too quickly.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of fluff and a big pile of nsfw in here too. Massive thanks to [Immoral Crow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/) for beta help and lovely notes. <3 Any mistakes are mine, all mine.

Mikey’s phone rings while he’s on the way to work and Pete’s on the other end when he answers.

“Hey, wanna come stay with me for a few days?”  
“Stay with you where?” Mikey asks, because really Pete could be anywhere.

“In LA. In my actual house. We have some stuff to do here and a few days off around it.”  
“I didn’t think you had a house. I thought you were a nomad, doomed to walk the earth forever, pulling your suitcase behind you. But okay. When?”  
“Hilarious. When are you quitting the comic book store to do stand-up? Want to come to see me the end of next week? Is that enough time to organise?” Mikey can get time off from the store if he can organise cover. And maybe Frank can take Venom for him, or at least check in on her at regular intervals so she doesn’t hate him when he comes back.

“Yeah, that should be okay.”  
“Awesome,” Pete says, and he sounds about as excited as Mikey feels. “And the guys want to meet you seeing as I never shut up about you. So I figured we could do dinner or something.”  
“Oh,” Mikey says and it comes out about as enthusiastically as he feels. It’s not that he doesn’t want to meet Pete’s friends, Pete’s _bandmates_ , it’s just that it sounds big and scary. Now he knows how Pete felt when Mikey made him have dinner with his own friends. 

“What? You don’t want to meet them?”  
“What if they don’t like me?” Mikey makes his way down the street, narrowly missing walking into a woman with a baby and a kid on a skateboard, because he’s not really paying attention to where he’s going at the moment. 

“Then I’ll kill them and bury them in the Hollywood hills. No one will ever find the bodies and you and I can start a new band called Sweet Little Dudes .”  
“Funny. You can join me on the stand-up circuit.”  
“You’ll be fine, Mikey. I promise. For god’s sake they put up with _me_. They’ll like you.”  
“Okay,” Mikey says, though he’s going to have to talk himself into it. “Hey, where are you?”  
“In a hotel room. Bus call is in half an hour. I’m neither dressed nor packed.” Pete sounds so relaxed, and not at all concerned that half an hour in Pete-time is not the same as real time and he will likely be late, especially if he stays on the phone.

“You should go get ready.”  
“I know. Wanna have phone sex instead?”

And yes of course Mikey wants to. Pete ’s dirty talk is downright filthy, but he can’t. “I’m in the middle of the street, about to grab a coffee. Can’t. And don’t start with me on the phone because I can’t do a whole day with a hard-on again. I’ll end up knocking comic books off the shelf with it.”  
“This sucks. I wish we could both call sick and stay on the phone all day. There should be a concession day like that for when you’re in love.”

Mikey’s skin feels hot all over and his heart thumps hard. “You’re in love ?” They haven’t actually used the ‘L’ word yet, even though Mikey has been feeling it for quite some time now, so it’s a big thing. “You love me?”  
“Of course, idiot.” Pete sounds shocked, like Mikey should know this already. 

Mikey smiles because only Pete could declare his love and also call him an idiot in the space of twenty seconds. “You know I love you too, right?”  
“Yeah, I was really hoping you did.” Pete sounds so pleased. It burrows right inside Mikey and he suddenly misses him so much. He wants to hold him, kiss him, and spend a day in bed with him.

“I think a random guy having a smoke outside Starbucks overheard me declaring my love,” Mikey says, and Pete laughs. “So long as he doesn’t think that it’s him I love.”  
“Tell him I love him too then.”  
“I have to go, declaration of love or not. Gonna grab a coffee before work.”  
“Get an extra shot of espresso for me?” Pete asks.  
“Anything you want .”

*

Mikey lets his eyes travel around the hallway in Pete’s house. It’s all high ceilings with white washed walls, and large windows that spill LA sun in the rooms. The walls have a few large paintings on them and a big screen print. They’re probably really cool art works done by people too cool for Mikey to have ever heard of them. There’s several rooms off the hallway that even from here look similarly impressive. It’s a beautiful house, and Mikey’s apartment would fit into it several times over.

“This is my house,” Pete says, like he’s not sure what else to say.  
“Yeah, I got that.”  
“You like it?” Pete takes his hand to pull him down the corridor, luggage left abandoned by the door.  
“Well , so far I’ve only seen the hallway.”  
“And?”  
“It’s terrible!” Mikey makes a mocking disgusted face. ”It’s so tiny and dark and ugh! How can you live here?” 

Pete grins and ignores Mikey’s teasing. “While you’re here I want you to be comfortable so make yourself at home, okay? Whatever you want. Wear my clothes, eat all my food, or piss in my pool if you want. Whatever. Want a tour?”  
“I forgot you have a pool.” Mikey shakes his head and clicks his tongue. “Such a rockstar thing to have.” Pete sticks his tongue out at him. “But yes please. Gimme the tour.”

Pete leads him around the house by the hand, stopping in every room to show him things. Mikey would have assumed that other celebrities might want to show off accolades or accomplishments in their giant fancy houses. Pete shows off things like Star Wars posters, or awesome vinyl he found in a pokey little record store in London, and some little trinkets that fans gave him that he thinks are neat. It’s like show and tell, and Pete seems so proud to be showing all these things to Mikey like he’s eager to impress him. Mikey was impressed by Pete when they first met in the dive bar, and before he knew anything about him, so Pete showing off is just really endearing.

When they get to Pete’s bedroom, Mikey can’t help himself. “So let me guess. This is where the magic happens, right?”  
Pete wrinkles his nose at him. “Hilarious. I would say that but all the magic has been happening in New Jersey lately.”  
“Smooth line.”  
“Wana check out my bed?” he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.  
“Not right now? Long day.” The flight felt very long and even though travelling first class was fun, and not something he’s used to doing, it’s taken a lot out of him to travel across the country.  
Pete kisses him on the nose. ”Sure.”

In the evening, Pete brings him to a little sushi restaurant near by that’s his favourite. It’s a great evening and it feels both normal to be out on a date with Pete, and exotic to be on one with him in a place like LA. Halfway through dinner a girl in her early twenties comes over to Pete to ask for a photo with him and an autograph on a napkin. Mikey’s not fully sure what he’s supposed to do in these situations even though it’s happened once before when he was out with Pete in Jersey. He studies his menu or his cutlery or his water glass and tries not to stare.

The girl who asks is polite and very apologetic for disturbing Pete’s dinner, and Pete just smiles and says he doesn’t mind. Mikey thinks he would say that even if he did mind, though. At the end of the dinner their waitress asks if she can take a picture with him and of course Pete says yes. Mikey hides a smile, and maybe he’s being cynical but he’s amused that she waited until Pete paid and left a decent tip before she asked.

When they get home they fall into bed and sleep curled around each other, and Mikey’s so happy to share a bed with him again.

In the morning, Mikey feels like he could be in some sort of cheesy romantic comedy when the LA sun streams through the blinds and washes the room in bright morning light. Pete is awake already and fiddling with his phone beside him, but it seems like he’s been waiting on Mikey to wake because he puts it down as soon as he sees Mikey looking over.

“Morning,” Pete says, and slides over to beside Mikey. “Didn’t want to wake you. I know jetlag is a bitch.” 

“Hey,” Mikey says and smiles. Pete props himself up on one elbow. He’s backlit by the sun from outside, his eyes are dark, his jaw is unshaven, and his hair is askew. He looks gorgeous, and Mikey props himself up too so that their faces are level and he can lean over to kiss him. It’s just a small kiss at first, a good morning kiss, but it’s not long before it escalates into a lazy morning make out session. 

Pete’s mouth tastes sleep sour but Mikey likes it because it feels normal and domestic. He lets his tongue find its way past Pete’s lips and deep into his mouth, and revs up their kissing. Mikey runs his hand up Pete’s arm, over the smooth curve of his bicep and shoulder and cups it to Pete’s jaw. He rubs his thumb over the scratch of stubble and then threads his fingers into Pete’s hair. When Pete puts his arm around Mikey’s waist and tugs, Mikey lets himself be pulled on top. 

They get tangled together as they always do, just gentle touching and long, drawn out kisses. Pete spreads his legs and wraps them around Mikey’s waist to that they’re pulled tight against each other. It’s wonderful. 

Mikey has noticed that Pete is quite tactile on a normal day, and sometimes even with people he doesn’t know that well. It’s all harmless, friendly banter when it’s with other people, but it means that when he gets alone time with Mikey he tends to spend a long time touching every surface of Mikey’s skin, and usually chasing it with his mouth for good measure. Warm hands trace down the muscles in Mikey’s arms and back up again, over his shoulders, down his back, over his ass and thighs. It’s been too long since he’s had any time with Pete like this, but it always feels too long. Mikey is aching for more and almost painfully aroused.

He’s missed Pete, and hasn’t realized exactly how much until now. He’s missed the way Pete’s skin feels under his fingers, the way his and Pete’s hips feel when they’re lined up and grinding together, the little murmurs Pete makes when he’s getting more turned on. More than that, he’s missed his voice when it’s not distorted by a phone line, how he smells nicer than anyone Mikey has ever met, even if he hasn’t showered in days, and the thump of Pete’s heartbeat when Mikey rests his head on Pete’s chest.

He’s desperately turned on by how much he needs Pete right now, needs to be right under Pete’s skin. He needs to be inside Pete, right the fuck now.

“Hmm. Want you to ride me,” Mikey murmurs.  
“Ask and you shall receive, Mikeyway.”

After Pete is prepped with slick fingers, Mikey sits with his legs outstretched and Pete climbs into his lap, settling his legs either side of Mikey’s. Pete sits up a fraction to kiss Mikey, stroking his tongue deep into Mikey’s mouth, and trailing his hands down Mikey’s chest, pinching lightly at his nipples. He moves back down and lowers himself onto Mikey’s cock and they both make inhuman noises. 

Pete sets the pace and it’s so slow and delicious. He moves his hips in small motions to start with, just little tilts of his pelvis, but it takes Mikey’s breath away. Pete licks into his mouth and sucks on his tongue and threads his fingers through Mikey’s hair to hold him close. He rocks his hips harder and his motions increase but only in depth, not in speed, meaning that every movement is languid and slowed down. And it’s good, so good. 

Mikey kisses him, licks his tongue over Pete’s bottom lip and sinks his teeth into it gently. When Pete tips his head back to breathe, Mikey mouths at Pete’s neck and throat, licks over the hollow of his collarbone and nips at the sinew of muscle. He runs a hand through Pete’s hair and tugs on it, bringing Pete’s mouth forward again so Mikey can kiss him over and over .

Mikey’s so close already and from Pete’s rushed breathing and mumbled swearing he seems to be too, and he rides harder, finally picking up the pace, to bring it home for both of them.

Mikey imagines himself being in a romantic comedy again, and he thinks that this is the sort of love scene that would be set in front of an open fire on a stupid, furry rug with flattering lighting, and there would be dramatic orchestral music playing over it. In short, it would probably be cheesy. Except it’s even better than that because Pete’s not a cheesy Hollywood leading man, he’s real and amazing and sometimes needs a serious kick in the ass but he’s perfect in an imperfect way, and he’s all Mikey’s .

He feels like this is so much more than just fucking, and it’s that thought that sends him over the edge. His orgasm rolls over him and he clings to Pete, both arms around him and his forehead on Pete’s shoulder. Pete gets his hand between them and on his dick, and comes in seconds, groaning against Mikey’s skin. Mikey has never heard a more beautiful sound in his life .

Afterwards, they lie together for a long time, wrapped in each other’s arms. There’s not a lot of talk between them, just staring and smiling and kissing, and Mikey thinks this is probably the scene that people would say was really boring if it was in a movie, but it feels anything but that to him.

“Can’t move yet,” Pete finally mumbles. “But when I can, I need to shower. I have to go do band stuff in a couple of hours and I smell of come.”  
“You do. You’re gross.” He looks at Pete’s come smeared on his own belly and laughs. “But so am I.”  
“Shower with me, then. I’ll wash the come off for you.”  
“Such a gentleman. Yeah. But later.” He bats a hand weakly and closes his eyes again.  
“And we have dinner tonight. Don’t forget.”  
“Yeah, because I have so many other social engagements here in LA where I only know you.” There’s an edge of nerves that comes through Mikey’s voice that he was hoping he could have hidden. Pete picks up on it.  
“Don’t be nervous though, Mikes. It’ll be fine I promise.”

*

It is fine, and Mikey ends up thoroughly enjoying himself. 

Pete’s bandmates make him feel more than welcome and after the first five minutes of introductions, and another ten minutes of stilted conversation, he even forgets to be nervous and starts to enjoy himself.

The majority of the time he’s spent with Pete, it’s been just the two of them so it’s nice to see how Pete interacts with his bandmates. In a way they’re almost the way he and Gerard are with each other; like brothers who know too much about each other, mercilessly tease each other, and have each other’s backs. Pete and Patrick are especially close and Patrick seems to both pander to Pete’s ridiculousness and simultaneously not put up with his shit. Mikey thinks he could take notes from him on Pete-taming for future reference.

It’s obviously no secret amongst Pete’s friends that Mikey and Pete are dating, but it’s still a public restaurant so they have to be careful with how affectionate they are with each other. Mikey is pretty jealous of the other couples who get to link hands over the table, or feed each other desert (though Pete still shovels a spoonful of a gooey chocolate thing into his mouth, just discretely). He envies how at ease Joe and Marie are holding hands, and how casually Patrick throws his arm around Elissa’s shoulders. It doesn’t feel completely fair to have to keep his hands to himself for the whole night, but he understands why. 

He’s still getting used to this relationship being so different to any others he’s been in, and he wishes that he and Pete could have been organized enough to cook something or even order take-out for everyone in Pete’s house so that he could relax a bit more.

Someone decides that the best way to get to know each other is to tell one embarrassing story about themselves. Joe tells of a time he fell over on stage, and Elissa recites a story of walking three blocks with her skirt tucked into her underwear. 

Pete declines to tell a story, because there’s far too many to choose from, he says, and if everyone just waits ten minutes there’ll probably be another one that they can witness first hand. Mikey wants to kiss him, his self-depreciation can be quite cute at times.

“Mikes,” Pete grins. “You’re up next.”

“Okay,” he says, shaking his head. “This is stupid, but a couple of years ago we got some work done in the store. It was just a few bits of maintenance, a door needed fixing and we needed more shelves put up. Both me and Gee are pretty terrible at that sort of stuff so we hired this guy. He did what we needed pretty well, and then he asked me out. I thought he seemed okay so I said yes. We had one date and he kissed me at the end.”

“This better be going somewhere,” Pete mutters, though Mikey can tell he’s joking.

“It is.” Mikey gives Pete a reassuring pat on the arm. “So we went out once, and when he asked me out again I declined. He was nice, but there was nothing there.” Pete looks smug. “Anyway, when we got our invoice for the work, he’d given us a discount, and he’d drawn all these little hearts. Gee says he was trying to woo me by giving me a discount. Either that or he gave us money off for kissing.”

Pete throws his head back laughing. 

“You accidentally sold your body for some shelves,” Joe laughs. “I think you win this round of embarrassing stories.”

“Mikeyway, actual hooker with a heart of gold. I knew it” Pete says like he’s impressed. Patrick gives him a questioning look. Pete just shakes his head and says “Long Story.”

*

The rest of Mikey’s five days in LA pass in a blur. His favourite bits are all the little moments that he and Pete get together , like when Mikey cooks them dinner, and it’s just stir fried veggies and noodles, but Pete watches him like he’s working magic. It’s fun, and Pete is playful, pressing himself up against Mikey’s back, insisting on stirring the food, with his chin hooked on Mikey’s shoulder and his arm around Mikey’s waist. 

They have lazy make-out sessions in front of the TV, they take naps together, and sit outside in the crazy-hot LA sun and drink copious amounts of coffee together. 

Pete takes him on a hike in the hills at the back of his property and they spend hours walking and wandering and getting lost, before heading back home again.

Pete promised he’d show Mikey his awesome bath tub while they’re there together, and Pete wasn’t kidding about how big it is. He runs them a bath - which takes fucking ages and Mikey is sure they should be told off for using up that much water considering how hot it is in LA - and happily strips off. Mikey undresses as Pete slips under the bubbles and Mikey joins him. It’s the first time they’ve shared a soak since that time in Pete’s hotel room, but this is just as enjoyable, maybe even better because it’s Pete own bathtub. Of course there’s underwater handjobs, ‘for old time’s sake,’ Pete says, and Mikey definitely can’t argue with that. 

The only blemish on Mikey’s time is when Pete is out of the house working for most of one day. Mikey’s on his own and has a lazy morning reading in bed. He’s unwashed, and still dressed only in the boxers he slept in, but wanders to the kitchen seeking caffeine and maybe even something to eat. He doesn’t hear the click of a key in the front door, he doesn’t hear a person enter the house and he doesn’t hear anyone enter the kitchen. When he turns around with a mouthful of coffee and sees a middle aged woman standing in front of him looking confused, he gets the shock of his life, and spits hot coffee out of his mouth and all down his bare chest.

“You’re not Pete,” she says. And no kidding. What the fuck?

“No.” Mikey has no words as he stares blankly with a scowl.

“I’m Pete’s housekeeper?” she says slowly and still sounding confused. Mikey can’t blame her for not knowing what’s going on, because he hasn’t a clue either. But it makes sense if she’s here to here to clean Pete’s house, it just would have been nice to have a heads up about a stranger who can let themselves into the house.

“I’m a friend of Pete’s,” he says, because that’s the easiest way to explain. She looks him up and down and looks like she’s trying to hide a smile. Only then does Mikey remember that all he’s wearing is a pair of Pete’s (extremely small and form fitting) boxer briefs that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. “I’ll just-“ he says, gesturing towards the kitchen door, and then practically sprints down the hallway, coffee cup still in hand, only stopping to grab his phone. He needs to have words with Pete.

_currently having a heart attack after your housekeeper came over. Not only did I not know she was coming but I was half naked. You’re dead to me_

_shit. srry. 4got 2 tll u_

Mikey ducks into the one room he thinks she won’t clean which is stuffed to the brim with furniture and paperwork and gold discs. _hiding in your office. Still half naked. When I die from the shame, pls tell my cat I love her_

_wll make it up 2 u bby <3 <3 <3 srry _

Mikey sighs. _at least she didn’t see my dick_

Pete’s reply comes a second later. _u hav a v nice dick tho <3 _

He hides in Pete’s office for the rest of the time that she’s in the house, mortified, and slightly pissed at Pete, even if this will easily win him the next round of embarrassing stories. He only leaves when he hears the door click and he knows that she’s gone, and then crawls back into bed which has been made up with fresh sheets since he left it. 

But that’s the only blip, and at least he managed to bring his coffee with him . The rest of his time there is wonderful.

When Pete has to go off to do his band obligations, Mikey often amuses himself and sees some tourist type things to keep himself occupied. Pete gives him a list of ‘insiders tips’ as he calls it, with names of little hippie coffee shops, vintage clothing stores, vinyl stores that are like Aladdin’s cave but full of amazing things. Basically it’s all nice places to see that are so off the beaten path that he would have never have found them otherwise. 

His suitcase is suitably stuffed by the morning that he’s leaving and he has to lie flat on top of it to close it. Pete sits on the bed watching him struggle and giggling to himself. When Mikey looks up, Pete is snapping pictures on his phone.

“Asshole. No pictures unless you’re going to help me.”  
“But you’re really adorable trying to do that and I need something to coo over when you leave.”  
“You could help?”  
“I’ll supervise. I’m totally qualified to supervise after doing the exact same thing you’re doing so many times before. Just. Lean down with your chest, shift your weight.” Mikey leans his chest down more and he ends up with his ass in the air following Pete’s instructions. He looks up and Pete is laughing silently and taking more pictures. It’s obvious now that there’s a better way to do this and Pete is winding him up.

“Jerk.”  
“You’ll forgive me,” he says with confidence. And he’s right, the bastard. Pete gets up and walks towards him. “You sit on it, I’ll zip.”

“Now was that so hard to help me out, Wentz?”  
“Nope. But I would have missed you being so cute, Way,” he says and kisses him on the forehead.   
“That better not end up on the internet.” Not that Mikey really expects Pete to put it up, considering they’re still trying to keep their relationship on the down low, but with Pete it’s worth adding a little warning. Just in case .  
“You know me so well. Fine. No pictures of Mikey with his butt in the air. All for Pete,” he says gleefully. 

Pete insists on going to LAX with Mikey, despite Mikey protesting that he’s a big boy and can navigate the airport by himself. 

They steal a few goodbye kisses behind the safety of the tinted windows in Pete’s car, knowing that they can’t do it in the airport without drawing attention to themselves, and it’s LAX so chances are someone is looking. 

They sit and have coffee until Mikey’s flight is called. They haven’t worked out when they will see each other next just yet, but as usual Pete promises that once he’s got his schedule tweaked he’ll be on the next flight to see him.

To anyone watching, Pete is just dropping his friend off for a flight home. But for Mikey, his heart is wrenching because he can’t kiss the face off his boyfriend like anyone else. He knows that if they were any other normal couple they could probably get away with some proper kissing before Mikey goes, maybe even a quick grope if they did it discretely. 

It’s harder than he imagined it would be. He gets on his flight with a knot in his stomach that won’t shift .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am [here](http://thislossofsleep.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. come cry over Pete and Mikey with me.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have gotten carried away with the amount of smut that should be in one chapter. Oops? I guess that's just what happens on tour...  
> Once again, so very many thanks to the wonderful [Immoral Crow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/pseuds/immoral_crow) who has been unbelievably helpful. All mistakes are mine.  
> (With this chapter we are passed the haflway mark, by the way. Thanks to everyone who is reading. Hope you're enjoying it.)

A picture surfaces of Pete and Mikey together, despite how careful they were, and it gets more attention than most pictures of two guys saying goodbye to each other really should. Pete texts it to him to give him a heads up about it, and Mikey spends too long looking at it and zooming in. He’s barely visible, if it wasn’t for the fact that he actually knows it’s him, he would think it could be any man. But Pete is clearly identifiable, his face in profile, and he’s grinning at Mikey. They’re not even holding hands, not properly, but they’re touching; it’s one of the little finger squeezes that Pete does in lieu of linking his fingers into Mikey’s. It’s a shitty, blurry photograph, but it seems to be enough to fuel rumours that had already been floating around; Pete Wentz is dating a guy, not a girl.

It’s not like Mikey stalks gossip websites, and it’s not like Pete does either (though Mikey suspects that Pete sometimes sneaks a peek, just out of curiosity), so Mikey might never hear any of the rumours if Pete didn’t tell him . But Pete tells him. The headline the gossip website gave it was something stupid like “Wentz spotted canoodling with new boy toy.” Mikey wants to laugh. There was no canoodling, and Mikey is only a year younger than Pete.

They organize a Skype call because it’s one step better than a simple phone call and Mikey likes to see Pete even is he’s pixilated and sometimes blurry. Today Pete is propped up against the headboard of a hotel room bed and he looks tired. 

They’ve been around the conversation once already and Mikey hasn’t come to any conclusions yet but Pete seems to have his mind made up.

“Look, it’s not like I’m in a closet or anything. I always said I was bi, ‘gay above the waist’ or whatever. It’s just that I’m not ready to share you. Not yet. There’s a lot of shit that comes with dating me publicly apparently.” He rolls his eyes like he’s heard it all before. “It’s easier if it’s quiet. For a bit, anyway. Is that okay?”

Mikey’s silent for a minute, mulling it over. He knows that some guys might use the ‘let’s keep it quiet’ thing to be a douchebag and have several people on the go at the same time or something. But he knows it’s not about that. Somehow Mikey thought that this might be their opportunity to be honest about their relationship and it would make sense if they did, but Mikey’s new to this whole thing so he can’t pretend to be the expert. Pete mistakes Mikey’s silence for panic.

“Look if it’s not okay, just say it. I’m not ashamed. I’ll fucking get hold of a journalist right now and tell them. I’ll fucking put it on the internet this second. ‘I’m in love with Mikey Way.’”

Mikey’s stomach still flips every time Pete says he loves him, and Pete says it often, and he wants to tell Pete to go ahead and do it, but it’s also terrifying. “Will I just say I love you and tag you on the internet and save all the bother?” Mikey offers.

“Yeah maybe not. Though you can if you really want.“ Pete looks coy that Mikey even suggested such a gesture, though. He gives Mikey a little shy smile Mikey misses him so much. Pete moves his laptop to the end of the bed and lies down on his stomach with his head resting on his crossed arms. His face takes up most of the screen, and although he looks tired, his eyes are wide and sincere. “But I mean it. Are you okay with that?”

“Yeah. Yeah that’s fine,” he concedes. “I’m new to this so I’ll let you be my guide.” Mikey moves his own laptop from balancing on his knees to the bed and lies down too, that way they’re almost lying in bed together. It’s the closest they have to the real thing for a while .

“Guide you into trouble,” Pete says, and Mikey knows he’s just teasing. And yeah, that could be the case, but maybe Mikey’s okay with that too in a way . Right now he feels like he’d follow Pete anywhere.

*

Mikey and Pete are regularly apart and Pete is often far away, but while Pete is in Australia it feels worse than usual because the time differences make them so out of synch. Pete is sixteen hours ahead of Mikey, so day and night are all mixed up for both of them .

“Greetings from tomorrow, Mikey Mouse.”  
Mikey shakes his head and smiles, because _Mikey Mouse!_ “Is it tomorrow?”  
“I dunno actually. How’s yesterday?”  
“That’s a weird question, but it’s okay. Me and Venom are chilling out. It’s her turn to cook though and she’s being a useless, lazy, asshole cat as usual.”  
“Hey! Don’t call my friend Venom an asshole,” Pete teases.  
“Teach her to cook for me then, or at least to clean out her own litter box.”

Pete sighs, ignoring Mikey’s plea for a more domesticated and helpful cat. “I’m totally putting her on the internet again soon. She needs more exposure.”  
“Do it. She loves it.” As if on cue, Venom stretches out in Mikey’s lap and rolls onto her side so that Mikey can scratch all along her belly.

“Put one up and tag me,” Pete says like that’s the first time he’s thought of that.  
“Really?” Mikey’s cautious. He’s actively avoided the whole communicating-with-Pete-via-social-media until now, just because it seems a bit daunting and very public, and they’ve been pretty careful when they’re outside. And he’s genuinely afraid he will somehow accidentally out them and ruin Pete’s career.

“Yeah. I think that would be fine. People are guessing about us already, but it’s just a cat picture. Please?” and then when Mikey doesn’t react, “It’s fine. Put stuff up. You can talk to me on there you know. It’s only, like, the internet.”  
“Isn’t that the problem? That it’s the internet?” Mikey laughs. Then he thinks it shouldn’t be a big deal, it’s just a cat photograph. “But yeah, I’ll put a photograph of Venom the Camerawhore. No problem.“  
“Awesome.” 

It might be just a photograph of a cat, but to Mikey it signifies a little leap into the abyss.He takes a picture of Venom – she’s lying on her back with her ridiculously fluffy underside exposed, curling paws and a blissed out expression – and sends it to Pete via the wonders of social media. Pete replies soon after with a smiley face, a little red heart and a little cartoon cat. 

Mikey’s twitter explodes a little with comments and replies and people suddenly following him like he’s automatically interesting if Pete knows him. He texts Pete. _Jesus how do you cope with so many notifications?_

Pete replies. _lesson 1. ignore unless board. Lesson 2. Take wth a pinch of salt. Lesson 3. da block button s ur friend if ppl get weird_

Mikey makes a face. That’s probably good advice. He’s sort of bored, maybe more curious, but he clicks in and has a look and mostly it’s nice things, with people commenting on how fluffy and adorable Venom is. There’s a few less nice things that Mikey just skims through. His browsing is interrupted just a moment later by another text from Pete.

_lesson 4. I miss u a lot and I cnt wait 2 get my hands on u_

Mikey smiles. Yeah, maybe it’s okay to have a little rough when the smooth feels so good.

*

The extra attention that Mikey is getting is strange. Not necessarily bad, but very strange. He gets a few messages asking how he knows Pete, and one or two asking if he’s the guy that Pete is seeing. One message says that he’s far hotter than Pete and should dump Pete and go out with her. He takes a screen shot of that one and sends it to Pete so he can tease him over it.

Mikey is going out to stay with Pete again, this time while Pete is on tour in Europe which is pretty fucking exciting. Gerard seems to be well used to getting someone to cover for the store now and they’ve hired a college student as a part-timer to pick up the extra hours.

Mikey will be there for five days and he’s never been anywhere in Europe before. Pete has promised to show him nice things wherever they go, even if it’s a bit of a whistle stop tour, and most of it Mikey will see from a tour bus window. He’s flying to Edinburgh, which is pretty cool in itself even if there isn’t much time to wander around, and then they go to Paris and Mikey will eventually fly home from somewhere in Germany but Pete keeps forgetting where.

Pete’s been to all corners of the globe over the last few weeks – “three fucking weeks,” he keeps reminding him – so they have had to make do with texts, phone calls and skype. And the odd twitter or Instagram post, but really they’re few and far between. Pete tags Mikey in a picture of British chocolate bars when he’s in London, and Mikey replies with a screen shot of his television when Master Chef is on, saying that it needs another judge and that Pete should apply.

Mikey can barely contain his excitement the entire flight, which is actually a really, really long flight. Mikey wonders how Pete and the guys don’t lose their minds when they fly so much because the actual flying bit is _boring_. 

Pete picks him up from the airport with a driver and it’s not long before they arrive at the venue where the tour bus is parked out back. As soon as he and Pete are on the bus, there are hellos to the rest of the band, but only very short ones, because Pete is pushing Mikey down the narrow isle to the bunks room.

“In,” Pete says simply, and pulls back the curtain to his bunk. 

Mikey slides in. It’s not as small as he imagined a tour bus bunk would be. He imagined a tiny, cramped space, like a human sardine can or a coffin, but even when Pete climbs in after him it’s not as minuscule as he would have thought. Pete wastes no time in pressing himself against Mikey, kissing him hungrily and trailing his hands up and down Mikey’s body.

“Missed you,” he says to Mikey’s jaw as he nuzzles against it. Mikey hums. He’s content and it feels so good to have Pete back in his arms.

Pete pushes Mikey onto his back and climbs over him. They begin a slow make out, and it feels like all of the kisses that Mikey would have given Pete had they seen each other near daily like most other blooming relationships, just all crammed into one session.

Mikey’s brain retraces all the synapses that know how Pete tastes, the smell of his hair product, the feel of his stubble on his skin, the way he kisses Mikey like he might never see him again, and he re-commits all the details to memory. It’s a gorgeous feeling.

Mikey is happy to spend his afternoon making out with Pete if he’s allowed, right up until whenever Pete is dragged away to go on stage tonight, but the make-out turns dirty when Pete wedges his thigh between both of Mikey’s and grinds it upwards, giving delicious friction against Mikey’s hardening dick. After that it’s hard to keep it as a simple kissing session as they both let their hands wander further under clothes and definitely below the belt.

“Sex on the bus isn’t allowed,” Pete says seriously. Mikey swallows down the frustration he feels that he’s going to have to keep it in his pants until he and Pete get some time in a hotel or something. But Pete’s face breaks into a grin and then he moves up to place his lips close to Mikey’s ear. “So we’re going to have to be really quiet.” His whisper is rough and is accompanied by him grinding his hips down against Mikey’s. Mikey wants to moan but he just about manages to keep it in.

Pete does all the work of stripping them both, and looks thrilled to do it. All Mikey has to do is lift his shoulders to get his shirt off and lift his hips to get his pants off. Mikey feels a little exposed knowing that there’s only a thin curtain between him, now wearing nothing but his boxers which Pete is gleefully peeling off, and the rest of the bus, but that’s quickly forgotten when Pete finishes getting his own underwear off and lies flat on top of him, naked and aroused. 

It probably shouldn’t be enough for Mikey to get off, just kissing and rolling naked against each other, but after not seeing Pete for so long, somehow it is.Pete ruts against him, his cock hard against Mikey’s thigh. He kisses Mikey’s lips, face, neck, devouring him, and squeezes his fingers deep into the flesh of his thighs so that the skin turns pale, and between that and the pressure of rubbing himself off on Pete’s hip, it’s not long before the heat blossoms low in Mikey’s belly and he comes with a groan, completely forgetting that he’s supposed to be keeping the noise down.

Pete huffs a laugh, in amongst his heavy breathing, and rubs himself again and again against Mikey’s thigh, biting down on his lip when he comes and staying mostly silent.

“I forgot to stay quiet,” Mikey says. Pete is a dead weight on top of him, arms bracketing Mikey’s head on the pillow, face against his collarbone, but he lifts his head just enough for Mikey to see his smile. “You were really quiet, the total opposite to how vocal you usually are.”

“Practice makes perfect. I jerk off in here a lot so I had to get used to being quiet or the guys would have killed me by now.”  
“A lot?” Mikey asks, amused by how unashamed Pete is when he says that.  
“A _lot_. Even this morning. I wouldn’t have lasted five seconds with you otherwise.”  
“I’ll do that next time,” Mikey says. “It’s been a while since I saw you.”  
“Three fucking weeks,” Pete says almost disbelieving, and buries his head back into the crook of Mikey’s neck. “But you’re mine for the next five whole days.”

They’ve been dating for several months now, as much dating as they can actually do when they’re not on the same schedule, not in the same state and often not even in the same country. They’ve done the ‘I Love Yous’, but hearing Pete say he considers Mikey ‘his’ still makes his day. 

“I think I’m yours anyway, Pete. You know that.”

Pete raises his head again and grins.

“Yours or not, we’re probably going to have to move to clean up or we’ll get stuck together.”  
“I’m fine with that. Don’t mind being stuck to you,” Pete says into Mikey’s skin, but reluctantly moves and grabs his already-worn underwear to wipe his and Mikey’s stomachs in turn and then tosses them into a corner.

“Your bunk is kind of gross, you know.”  
“And this is at the start of tour. You should see it at the end of one. I’m basically sleeping on a sea of dirty clothes and candy bar wrappers.” He looks like he’s almost proud of it.  
“And jizz?”  
“Of course. Nobody should ever take a black light to this bunk.”

They spend the rest of the afternoon wrapped up in each other and while Mikey is a little sad when they have to dress and leave their little nest to get ready for sound check, he’s also very interested to see what goes on before a big show. When he and the guys used to play, for the few gigs they had, it was always tiny venues without any sort of backstage area beyond a coat room. He’s been backstage when Frank has played with several of his many bands, and Frank might kill him for saying it, but it’s not quite the same as backstage of a sold out show in a large venue.

There’s a lot of people milling around backstage, and while it’s interesting to watch, Mikey mostly just hangs back and tries to stay out of the way. Pete is whisked off to meet with fans and do some sort of signing, so Mikey hangs around in the dressing room until they’re back.

Backstage is a little like some of the other ‘rockstar’ things that Mikey has encountered. It has some mystery about it and it feels like it should be all glitz and glamour, but in reality it’s not quite. So far it’s a bunch of guys hanging out, at least until they have to work. Mikey was very interested to see what sort of rider the guys would have, to see if it’s really like on television where artists ask for puppies to pet, or a bowl of only green M&Ms. It’s not. The rider is actual food and beverages, functional things, and there’s no puppies to play with, sadly. But it’s fun to be a part of nonetheless.

Pete’s bandmates are fun to hang out with and there’s a great camaraderie in the dressing room. There’s plenty of time before the show so everyone is just chilling. It’s currently just the four band members and Mikey, and he feels like he’s been invited into the inner circle or something. He’s on a large sofa with Pete pressed against his side, and it’s nice to be able to be openly affectionate because it’s not often they get the chance.

“You disappeared for the entire afternoon, Wentz,” Joe says.  
“I was busy.” There’s a smirk in Pete’s voice that Mikey hopes only he can pick up on. He knows what Pete was busy doing.  
“Busy avoiding us? You ashamed of us embarrassing you in front of Mikey?”  
“Busy having quiet, secret tour bus sex,” Pete says. Mikey feels himself blush, and he wishes he had something to hide behind, or fall into. Not so secret anymore, and he wasn’t quiet, but that’s not the point.  
“It’s not secret tour bus sex if you brag about it after, you know,” Patrick says, and gives Pete a look.

Mikey cringes and digs his elbow into Pete’s ribs, but lightly enough to not cause too much of a scene. Pete shrugs and looks like he really doesn’t care. “Three fucking weeks since I’ve seen this man, Trick.” Pete hooks his arm around Mikey’s neck. “You guys are lucky I waited until I got him into a bunk.”

Mikey wrinkles his nose. “Pete,” he says, and he hopes it sounds warning.  
“Ah, you’ve learned the tone,” Pete says and grins. Patrick gives Mikey the thumbs up. Andy and Joe are smiling too and Mikey’s feeling like he’s missing something.  
“What tone?”  
“The warning tone. Ask any of the guys. The warning in your voice to tell me off,” Pete says solemnly.  
“That’s a thing?”  
“Yep. The guys are pretty fucking good at it now.” Pete’s bandmates nod along.  
“Welcome to the club,” Pete says and leans in and kisses him on the cheek.

The gossip about Pete dating a guy is still around, and they’re still careful, but Pete is a little more relaxed about it, taking chances to press a kiss to Mikey’s lips when no one is looking, or sneakily holding hands under the table. It’s not like Pete is going to drag Mikey on stage and make out with him in front of thousands of people, but right before Pete heads on stage he blows Mikey a kiss and gives him a theatrical wink. It’s cute, and Mikey gets a serious bout of butterflies.

It’s Mikey’s first time watching Pete live on stage despite the fact that they have now been dating a while, which is just ridiculous. He’s seen video clips of course, and Pete once sent him a picture of himself live in the middle of a show, but it’s not the same at all. Watching Pete, well, he’s something else. Mikey’s chest swells with pride when he sees Pete launch into the opening track and he doesn’t really feel anything less for their entire show. Pete jumps around, spins, hops up on the drum riser, and laughs with Patrick, Joe or Andy as if they weren’t on stage in front of thousands of screaming kids. Pete’s in his element. 

Standing side stage is pretty fun, and Mikey’s used to being deep in the pit for shows, so it’s very different. Pete throws him a smile or a wink when he catches his eye, and when they come off stage to do the pretend-the-show-is-over-even-though-we-all-know-there’s-an-encore bit, he blows Mikey another kiss before heading back out there. It’s a rush, and Mikey’s sure he must be soaking up some of the adrenaline from the guys because he’s almost as pumped as they are by the end of the show.

After the show is a little bit of an anti-climax; no raging after parties or groupies trying to bribe their way in. Not that Mikey really expected that, but he thinks it would be amusing. No, after the show it’s more like a bunch of sweaty, tired dudes hanging out.

Pete had told Mikey upon his arrival that there was a bunk made available for him – meaning a spare bunk that was usually used to store everyone’s miscellaneous things was cleared out – but Mikey can’t imagine giving up the chance to share a bed with Pete after not sleeping beside him for weeks, so they squash together in Pete’s bunk, though Mikey revises his earlier thought of the bunk being spacious. 

Mikey drifts off to sleep content to have Pete’s warm body pressed against him.

*

The next morning Pete is wide awake and full of energy, despite claiming he didn’t sleep much. 

“Do you know what happens tonight?” he asks, climbing on top of Mikey, jostling the mattress. Mikey rubs his eyes. He’s not awake yet, not nearly as awake as Pete is.  
“Another show? More adoring fans and backstage PB&J’s?”  
“Yes,” he says and rubs his palms over Mikey’s belly, rucking up his shirt and running a finger down Mikey’s faint happy trail. “But more than that. After the show we have a hotel night.”

Mikey raises his eyebrows, now listening a little more. Pete leans down and kisses him lazily.

“A hotel means we can have spread out, loud, amazing hotel sex.” He punctuates each word with a kiss to Mikey’s jaw, neck, pulse.

Mikey’s more awake now, or at least his dick is. He whimpers. “I want hotel sex.” It’s a very long time until they get to the hotel, and he suddenly wants nothing more than a big king size bed to roll around in even though he didn’t know anything about the chance of one until three minutes ago.

“Sex so good it sounds like we are murdering each other,” Pete says. Mikey hums, wondering how on earth he’s going to be able to live through the day until they get to the hotel. “So loud that the night manager might have to come to our room to ask if everything is okay,” Pete mutters into Mikey’s skin. “And I was thinking,” he says, sitting up to look Mikey in the face. ”Can I fuck you?”

Mikey stares at him. Pete clarifies, “You always fuck me, and I want to see what it’s like to fuck you back. Tonight I mean. Not now.” Mikey smirks, amused that Pete felt the need to specify. If Mikey can’t remember to stay quiet when they’re just rubbing off on each other, there would no way in hell that Mikey could stay quiet if Pete wanted to fuck him in a bunk.

He doesn’t have to think about it though, he nods. It’s true that he always tops with Pete and it’s been a long time since he was fucked, but yes, unbelievably yes. He wants that.

“You like me enough that you want to put a part of your body inside one of mine?”  
“Something like that,” Pete says and kisses him.

Mikey nods again. But he’s so turned on now. He pulls Pete down again and Pete kisses him until he needs to catch his breath.

“Hey, do you think you can stay quiet if I blow you?” Pete asks. “Tonight’s too far away. I need to make you come right now.”  
“No!” Mikey says. “But I can try.”  
“Try really hard.” Pete grins and kisses him again, and then shimmies down the bunk taking the bed clothes and Mikey’s boxers with him.

Pete doesn’t play around, gets right to the good stuff. Mikey is engulfed in the heat of his mouth all the way down to the base of his dick and then Pete concentrates on sucking on the head, his mouth tight around Mikey. Mikey does remember that he’s supposed to be quiet this time, though actually keeping in all those moans is much harder.

Pete licks up the underside of Mikey’s shaft, and Mikey bites his lip. Pete swirls his tongue around the crown, and Mikey presses his lips together until they turn white. Pete sucks hard, and Mikey clasps his own hand over his mouth. Pete laps his tongue against the slit, and Mikey thinks he might die trying to stay silent.

When Mikey hoists himself up on his elbow to see, Pete’s eyes are twinkling at him and he looks like he would smile if his mouth wasn’t full of dick, so Mikey flops back down and divides his energy between enjoying how good Pete’s lips feel stretched around him, and having the quietest blow job in the history of the world. When he comes, he fucks his hips up towards Pete’s mouth and bites down into his own palm, swallowing the epic groan that should have accompanied it.

“You were really fucking quiet. I’m proud of you,” he says and kisses Mikey on the forehead, right between his eyebrows. “Now do me. Want your mouth.”

Mikey obliges, and Pete really is a seasoned pro when it comes to quiet tour bunk orgasms. There’s barely a sound except for his huffing breaths and the wet sound of Mikey sliding his mouth over Pete’s cock again and again. When Pete comes he just shudders and stiffens and tightens his hands in Mikey’s hair.

“God, you were so quiet. How the fuck?”  
“Told you. Practice makes perfect,” he says and shrugs.

There’s sounds of someone moving around outside the bunk, maybe passing through, but it startles Mikey, reminding him that they are in a semi-public place after all. That extra-naked feeling is back and he moves the bed covers up over him and Pete again just in case.

“We have press to do in an hour, just reminding you,” Joe’s voice says from outside. There really isn’t any privacy on the tour bus. It’s worse than when Mikey had to share a room with Gerard.  
“Yeah, yeah.” Pete doesn’t seem phased at all.  
“And there’s fresh donuts in the lounge. Still warm. I think they’re from a radio station we have an interview with later. Probably to make sure we go, but we were going anyway. So. Donuts.” Joe says. There’s more noise of things getting moved around and Pete’s attention is back to Mikey.

“Want a donut? Actually that’s a stupid question. Of course you do. Come on.” He starts digging in the pile of clothes at the very end of his bunk for something to wear. He tosses Mikey’s pants at him and a shirt that’s not Mikey’s but it smells clean so he wears it anyway.

It’s odd hanging out on the bus with Pete because it’s almost like staying with a friend who shares a very small apartment with lots of other people who come and go without any warning. When Pete stays with Mikey they have the place to themselves and organise their time as they like, and because Mikey lives alone Pete never has to make allowances for house mates. Tour bus life is exactly the opposite. There’s almost always noise from somewhere and there isn’t a lot of privacy. Although Mikey is made to feel more than welcome, it still takes quite a while to settle in and to feel as though he’s just another tour bus inhabitant.

The day is different to the one before because Pete and the guys actually have to work, and beyond just playing a show. The first lot of press that they have to do involves a series of interviews with local newspapers and magazines which are conducted in a room in the back area of the venue. Pete brings Mikey with them and Mikey just hangs around. It’s sort of interesting to see how journalists treat the guys; some with open awe, some think that they’re best friends with the band after meeting them for five minutes, some who maybe think they’e Serious Journalists and above interviewing a bunch of guys like Fall Out Boy. It’s very interesting how often the same questions appear again and again, the interviewers thinking they’re being oh so original, and falling far short of the mark.

When those interviews are over, the guys are ushered out of the venue and into a waiting car to take them to a radio station to be interviewed there. Pete tells Mikey he’ll be back before he knows it and Mikey crawls into Pete’s bunk on the bus. It’s not like he’s hiding there, just soaking up a little bit of alone time while he can, knowing that things will get busy again when everyone gets back.

Mikey can hear the exact second the guys come back onto the bus. Their conversation is loud and animated and Mikey can just hear the end of it as he heads towards the lounge to join them.

“I’m just saying,” Patrick says, “you could have just not answered.”  
“Then they ask it again,” Pete counters. And Mikey has heard that tone from Pete before. It’s his stubborn tone.  
“But they’re going to ask you again anyway now.”  
“Fuck it. I don’t care.” He shrugs.  
Patrick sighs. “You might end up caring when they keep asking you. Patience isn’t always your virtue,  
Pete.”

Pete greets Mikey with a smile and tip of his chin. “Just discussing the interview we just did.”  
“It went well?”  
Pete makes a face. “Most of it was fine.”  
It sounds like a vague answer to Mikey, and he can’t help but probe. “Some wasn’t fine?”  
“At the end, the cocky little asshole thought it was funny to ask me - and only me, he didn’t care about anyone else - if I was seeing anyone, who I was seeing, if it’s true that I’m dating a guy.”  
“Actually he asked if you were dating guys. Plural. Like you wouldn’t be just seeing one,” Andy says. Pete nods at the input and keeps talking.  
“So I said, it doesn’t matter to him who I’m fucking, but maybe he’d like me to ask him about who he’s fucking. It wasn’t live, it’s recorded. They can bleep out my bad language. He wasn’t happy though, and the interview ended there.”

Mikey’s eyes widen at hearing that and he involuntarily winces. “That’s certainly one way to answer that sort of question.” It comes out with a nervous laugh because he’s not sure what to say. No one ever really cares who Mikey is dating, regardless of their gender. It’s never been an issue that he’s had to answer questions about.

“Should I not have said that?” Pete says, and for the first time since they started talking about the interview he looks a little worried.  
“No—it’s not that. Just. I don’t know. I’ve never had to answer that, so I don’t have any idea of how to handle it.” Pete stares at him wide eyed. Mikey really wishes they were having this conversation anywhere but in front of so many people. 

“It’ll be fine,” Pete says, and Mikey wants to believe him but he feels a little out of his depth.

*

The single instruction that Mikey gives to Pete on arrival at their hotel room is, “It’s been a while since I’ve been fucked, be gentle with me.” 

Not only is Pete gentle, but he’s careful and sweet, and takes his time at every step.

They start as they usually do, with a slow make-out and undressing each other. Mikey will never get bored of seeing all of Pete’s gorgeous skin appearing inch by inch as he strips him. When they’re naked, Pete fingers Mikey with slow, deliberate little movements, starting with just one finger, despite Mikey’s reassurances that he can take two. Pete has fingered him before during blowjobs, but this feels completely different.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”  
“I’ve done this before, Pete.” 

But he lets Pete go at his own pace because it feels fantastic anyway. He adds a second finger, and eventually a third, and Mikey more that enjoys the feeling the stretch when Pete scissors his fingers or crosses them. When he’s ready – and when Pete also decides that Mikey is ready – he flips onto his front.

Mikey lies on his stomach with a pillow under his hips and he’s gripping another under his head, and Pete lies over him, peppering kisses down the back of his neck and over his shoulders. He trails his hand down Mikey’s bare back, over the swell of his ass and then rests it on his hip. 

“Pull your knee up,” Pete whispers roughly, tracing his hand down Mikey’s thigh. Mikey complies and hitches his leg up so that it’s heading for his ribs.

Pete curls both hands around Mikey’s hips and lines himself up at Mikey’s hole, his legs wide apart and straddling Mikey’s, and then slowly pushes forward. They both moan, deep and low, and Pete waits for a second without moving, just breathing, and then begins to thrust, with no speed or force, just testing and easing Mikey into it.

Pete pushes forwards and eases back, and Mikey breathes hard into the pillow, relishing Pete’s weight on top of him, the heat of Pete’s chest on his back making sweat drip down his spine. Pete thrusts again, slow and easy, and _god,_ Pete is going to be the death on Mikey.

“Jesus. You feel so good. I’ve been thinking about this for ages, jerking myself off to how good you’d feel. It’s even better than I thought,” Pete pants. He sounds breathless already and they’ve barely started yet, but then so is Mikey. He leans over Mikey, bracing his weight on his elbows so that he can kiss Mikey’s back, and the base of his skull. He trails his lips through Mikey’s hair and it makes Mikey shiver. Pete rubs little circles down between Mikey’s shoulder blades and then down to the base of his spine to sooth him. He moans and huffs as he grinds his hips in a slow circle, pushing deeper in Mikey’s ass.

“Fuck. So good. You’re so tight. You okay?”  
“Yeah, just. More?”  
“Mmm, I can do that.”

Mikey might have told Pete to be gentle, but he underestimated just how gentle Pete would be with him, how much he really wanted to be fucked, and how much he needed Pete inside him. Pete goes a little harder but there’s no way he will be able to get deep enough at this angle for what Mikey wants. It’s maddeningly slow, but Mikey wants more, wants to be fucked hard, to be full of Pete. He wants to really feel it. He asks for more, and Pete gives it to him, pushing harder, thrusting faster, but it’s still not enough. Mikey winds up pushing himself up on his elbows and lifting himself to his hands and knees, full-on doggy style, so that Pete can drive hard into him. 

Pete holds on tight to Mikey’s hip with one hand, wraps the other around his chest and slams into him again and again, and _fuck_. It’s almost overwhelming to be full of Pete and all covered in him now too. 

Mikey holds out as long as possible, savouring it, focusing on the feeling of Pete’s dick filling him, the press against his prostate, and Pete’s fingers digging into his skin. Pete sounds so fucking hot, huffing and panting behind him, and Mikey loves it. 

Pete’s losing control and they both know it; he’s mouthing at Mikey’s neck and shoulder as he thrusts but he’s falling out of rhythm and moaning more and more. Mikey’s close too, and Pete only has to reach around for Mikey’s dick and give it a stroke or two, and Mikey comes with a cry, shooting onto the pillow below him. Pete comes buried deep inside him seconds later, groaning and shuddering and leaning heavily on top of Mikey.

Mikey can barely hold his own weight up, let alone the two of them so he nudges Pete to move off him, though it takes a lot of effort, and more so for Pete to actually move and get rid of the condom.

“That okay?” Pete asks like he’s not sure.  
“Yeah. So much yeah,” Mikey reassures him, as if coming all over the bed wasn’t enough of an answer already. He smiles to himself at the thought that they’ve defiled more hotel room bed linen.

Mikey’s going to be sore in all the right places tomorrow. Every time he shifts his weight or sits down without thinking first his head is going to be filled with the memory of being fucked so deliciously by Pete.

*

When the radio interview airs, they cut it before the presenter asked Pete about his love life so no one hears his bitchy come back. However, the presenter does make comments about how touchy Pete was on being asked about his love life, and that obviously he’s got something to hide if he declined to answer. He brings up the rumours that Pete is dating a guy but leaves it at that.

Pete just scoffs and makes what he thinks is a cryptic tweet about how people shouldn’t be nosey assholes, when really it’s obviously directed at the journalist. Once again, Mikey can’t help but feel a little out of his depth.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, huge thanks to [Immoral Crow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/pseuds/immoral_crow/works) for helping fix my plot holes and terrible spelling.

It’s Mikey’s last full day on tour with Pete. Neither of them are talking about it, but it’s clear that those five days went far too quickly. It’s easier not to make a big thing of it, not yet. They can do it the next day when Mikey has to fly home.

Pete and his bandmates have some more press to do, though not as much. 

Any time that Pete isn’t working, he and Mikey spend together on the bus, and they either sit on the sofa in the lounge, Pete’s head in Mikey’s lap, or they’re holed up in Pete’s bunk. 

Pete posts a photograph to his Instagram where his head is in Mikey’s lap and the camera is above his face so that Mikey’s thighs can be seen underneath him. He captions it _that lazy tour bus life_. Mikey thinks of how many other times he’s ended up contributing to Pete’s social media posts without anyone knowing, whether he’s been just out of shot, or it’s a photograph he’s taken and Pete has shared, or a joke or one-liner that Pete blatantly stole from him.

They don’t get to see a lot of the cities the band are playing, though Pete makes sure that he and Mikey have coffee in as many cute little coffee shops as they can find. On their last day together they sit in the sun in outside a little ice cream shop in Dusseldorf and eat ‘Spaghetti Eis’ which is vanilla ice cream pushed through a press so that it comes out looking like spaghetti, then covered in cherry sauce and white chocolate flakes to look like marina sauce and parmesan cheese. It’s pretty much the best thing ever in Mikey’s books.

“I’m only eating ice cream in the shape of spaghetti from now on.”  
“Me too.”

The show that night is just as much fun to watch, though Mikey has a few little pangs of sadness that he’s not going to get to see this tomorrow night, or the night after. In fact he’s probably not going to get to see Pete for quite a while. He watches Pete get mauled and pawed at when he jumps into the pit, and climb back on stage wearing only half a shirt after fans rip it off him. Mikey doesn’t want to say that seeing Pete like that is hot, it’s such a cliché. (But it’s pretty hot.)

After the show, they’re crossing the parking lot to get back on the bus. There’re some street lights on in the area, but not many, so it’s dark enough that Pete has Mikey’s hand in his as they walk. 

One of the strangest things about being in Europe is picking up on the new languages and accents around him. Mikey has only been in Germany for two days, but he has already gotten used to hearing the lilt and the broad sounds of the German language, even if most of the crew around him have various American accents. It’s strange then for Mikey when he hears English words being hollered around the parking lot, until he remembers something Pete mentioned about a soccer qualifier happening at the same time as the show (actually Pete grumbled about it; what are the chances that there’s an American soccer game in the same city as them, and really fucking close by, too, and Pete has to miss it). About halfway to the bus, there’s a group of guys coming towards them, and they most definitely don’t sound German. They’re close enough that what one of them says carries across the lot. Mikey wishes they hadn’t said it.

“You run out of Hollywood bimbos to fuck, Wentz?”

Pete’s face darkens instantly, and even in the bad lighting Mikey can see his jaw clench, but he doesn’t respond. He keeps going towards the bus, looking dead ahead, but he drops Mikey’s hand.

“No one will fuck you so you have to fuck dudes now?”

This time Pete turns his head in the direction of the guys, and Mikey thinks maybe he’s going to go for them. Mikey knows that security is about six feet behind them so Pete won’t actually do anything, but he looks livid. He glances at Mikey and then looks straight ahead again towards the bus, looking furious. Patrick ends up on his other side and squeezes him on the shoulder and Mikey thinks it’s possibly both in support and to keep hold of him . 

“Don’t,” Patrick says. “Don’t bother. It’ll be worse if you do.”

Pete says nothing in reply and glances backwards at the group of guys when they yell something else, but Mikey doesn’t hear what they say this time. His ears are full of his heartbeat, pounding and pounding, and he just wants to get on the bus and away from any potential shitstorm. 

Mikey can hear distant laughter as he piles onto the bus after Pete.

Pete is outraged. His anger seems to come in several different flavours and each one is as hard to stomach as the last. 

First, he’s spitting fire. He whips a book across the room and looks like he’d like to throw more than that and maybe punch a wall while he’s at it. He’s so tense, and his hands are balled into fists. Mikey doesn’t try to stop him or calm him yet, thinking it’s better to let him vent some of it.

Next Pete whirls around the lounge of the bus shouting about homophobia and ignorance. _Why should anyone care who I’m with? What difference does it make? If I wasn’t famous no one would give a shit, so why do they care now? Where do they get off commenting on my sex life?_ The guys let him rant, and when he calms a little – though it takes a while – Patrick and Andy head back to their own bus, leaving Joe and Mikey with Pete. Mikey’s trying to take his cues from the guys as well as from Pete for how he’s supposed to deal with this sort of situation. He’s never seen Pete like this before, but he assumes that his friends have. 

Then Pete wants to get off the bus and go back to tear shreds off those guys even though they’re long gone and the bus is now moving anyway, doing an overnight drive to their next venue. At one point he says he’s going to tell the driver to do a U turn and go back but that idea runs out of steam quickly when Pete realises how ridiculous that sounds, thankfully.

Next Pete is sullen and silent, sulking with his hood pulled up and muttering to himself inaudibly. He curls up with his head in Mikey’s lap and lays almost motionless while Mikey pets his hair soothingly. Joe gives Mikey a smile that’s sympathetic, but also reads as ‘he’s your responsibility now’ before heading off to bed and leaving them alone in the lounge .

“Don’t be angry,” Mikey soothes for the hundredth time.  
“Can’t help it,” Pete says. He pulls his head off Mikey’s lap and sits up, fitting his forehead to Mikey’s shoulder instead.  
“They’re just assholes.”  
“That’s the problem. And there’s a million more like them.” And sadly, Mikey knows that Pete is right.  
“Don’t be angry, please? Just forget about them.”  
“Didn’t you hear what he said last?” Pete sounds so sad. “It was about you.”  
“No. I was too busy hoping you wouldn’t punch someone. And I don’t care anyway.” Of course Mikey is curious, but he’s not sure he wants to know if it’s going to open it all up again and upset Pete a second time. What good will it do anyway?

“I’m sorry I dropped your hand. I feel shitty for that. I’m not ashamed.”

Mikey’s heart twists. Maybe some of Pete’s severe bad mood is for him, and he has to take a deep breath. He’s touched, and it makes hips lips twitch, though not quite into a smile, the mood is not light enough for that yet. “Is that what this is about? I don’t care. I know you’re not ashamed.”

Pete sits up straighter to look at Mikey again. “I care. And it’s not just that, I hate the rest of it too. People are assholes.”

He kisses Pete on the forehead because he hates that people are assholes to Pete. Mikey hasn’t had much time to think about the whole event, but it’s shocked him a little. He’s never been particularly closeted, but then he’s never needed to be because no one really cares who he dates. Well, other than Gerard. Mikey knows that casual homophobia and biphobia are everywhere, and he mostly filters it out. He’s had a little bit directed towards him, but not much more than stupid, unfunny jokes and the odd slur. He’s always brushed it off because he knows that sometimes people are closed minded assholes. 

He can understand why Pete is pissed, and if he and Pete go public about their relationship there will possibly be a lot more assholes to deal with.

Mikey’s not sure how to deal with what’s coming, but he knows how to comfort Pete tonight. He just holds him until he calms, soothing him, and then Pete finally gets up and takes Mikey by the wrist back to his bunk . 

*

Mikey’s last morning is stupid and shitty and he hates it. He feels like he and Pete are always saying goodbye, but maybe that’s a part of this madness he has to get used to. 

Pete’s mood has cleared a lot since the unpleasantness of the night before, and now he just seems sad that Mikey is leaving.

“I’ll make sure we get more hotel time the next time you come see me, I promise. I just didn’t stamp my feet hard enough this time.”  
“It’s fine, honestly, Pete.” Mikey knows it has more to do with timing and scheduling than Pete stamping his feet, but it’s sweet of Pete to offer.  
“Yeah but we could have fucked in a big hotel shower instead of squashed up, tour bus, quiet sex.” Pete sounds a bit sad at that thought, and yeah, that sounds pretty awesome to Mikey. It would have been nice if he could have proper, uninterrupted time with Pete before he had to go, but that’s just the way it goes. But bunk handjobs are still okay in Mikey’s world, especially the way Pete did it this morning; pressed close against him and whispering all the filthy things he’s going to do with him next time they see each other, while his hand did wondrous things.

Mikey is getting better at keeping quiet when he orgasms.

They’re still in the bunk but (relatively) clean and dressed. They’re tuned to face each other and Pete strokes Mikey’s cheekbone, looking at Mikey like he’s made of gold .

“It’ll be a week or so before I can get to see you again. The flight is long to Newark and we don’t have two days off together for a while. I won’t make it there and back in one day. But I’ll get there as soon as I can,” Pete says. 

Mikey’s feeling spoiled after having Pete for several days in a row, so it’s hard to think that they won’t be together again for a while, but Mikey will take what he can get. His stomach swoops down low when he thinks that Pete was even considering flying all that way just for a few hours together.

“Just an old-school one day date, though,” Pete explains. A one day date is better than nothing at all of course, but those visits go so quickly.  
“Can’t wait.”

“So. The tour is almost done, which is great. Only about a month left. I’ve a week off then, which is cool, and after that we start prepping for the next album. We’re going to be in LA writing and rehearsing, and eventually recording. I’ll be there for a while.”  
“Oh.” Mikey reads that as Pete won’t be able to come to visit.  
“So do you want to come out and stay with me when I’m in LA? It can be open ended. Stay as long as you like. Or not. Even just weekends when you can is cool.” 

Oh. Mikey’s eyebrows shoot upwards. That’s the opposite of what he had been thinking. There’s potential there for them to spend a decent amount of time together. “Yeah. I wasn’t expecting that. But yeah. I’ll have to organise things. Venom. Killjoys.”  
“Yeah. I get that. Come if you can. If not I’ll come to see you between stuff. But it’d be cool if you can come stay with me for a while. Like more than a week. Like more than a few weeks. If you can .” There’s so much hope in Pete’s deep brown eyes that Mikey considers missing his flight and just hiding in Pete’s bunk with him. Forever.  
“Yeah. Yeah I want to.” Mikey kisses him and rubs his thumb along Pete’s jaw. 

There’s sound from the front of the bus and a voice that Pete recognises. “Think that’s your ride. Will I come with you?”  
“No. Stay here. I’ll be fine. And it means we get a goodbye kiss here, rather than a really romantic handshake in the airport.”

“I was totally going to stick my tongue down your throat the whole way there. Really freak out the driver.” Mikey laughs. Not because that’s a funny joke, but because he knows Pete is serious. Pete had wanted to make out on the way from the airport already and Mikey had politely declined.  
“As much as I’m devastated to miss out on a chance to traumatise someone,” Mikey says, and Pete grins, “stay here.” 

They kiss, a last kiss for the moment, and Mikey tries to drink in all the details he can from Pete, just as he did when they first kissed in the bunk, days before. But this time it’s so that he can remember all of Pete’s intricacies because he doesn’t get to do this again later today.

Mikey leaves. It’s bitter sweet. He clings to the knowledge that he will see Pete for a date soon and that they will get much more of each other when he stays in LA.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The times they are a changin' for Mikeyway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, massive thanks to [Immoral Crow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/pseuds/immoral_crow) for beta help. As ever, all mistakes are mine.

Mikey is on edge going to work today. It’s a Thursday which is usually a halfway busy day anyway, what with orders to do and new releases to price and catalogue, but that’s not why he’s wound up.

After almost a whole week of avoiding the subject, he’s finally going to step up and talk to Gerard about him going to LA, and not just for a short vacation this time.

He and Pete have talked about it extensively. At first Pete called it ‘visiting for a long time’, but visits usually have end dates, and he and Mikey haven’t put one on Mikey’s trip. He’s not sure that they will, and he’s not sure that he wants to.

Mikey waits until the busiest part of the day is over and morning deliveries are catalogued, sorted and shelved. He goes out and gets Gerard a coffee and a muffin without a word and he knows Gerard suspects something’s up by the side-eye he keeps giving Mikey. He’s barely looked up from his order sheets but he’s doodling something in the margin.

“So,” Mikey says.  
“What’s up?”  
“Nothing,” Mikey lies. Really he was hoping to just slip it into conversation quietly like it really is nothing, though that’s not going to be possible. He knows.

Gerard just gives him a look like he wasn’t born yesterday.

“Okay, so there’s something I wanted to talk about.” Mikey fiddles with the brown cardboard cup holder on his coffee, staring at where the barista got his name wrong and wrote it as Mickey. “Pete and I are – well Pete’s tour is finishing up next month, it’s been going on for ages, right? World tours are really, really long.” He’s stalling. 

“Good for Pete.” Gerard pauses, but only for a beat. “So are you going to go stay with him?”  
“Uh. Yeah, actually.” That seems far too easy to Mikey. “That’s what I was going to run by you.”  
“How long for?” Gerard continues to doodle in the margin of the order form and Mikey wonders if their suppliers ever think it’s weird that they get different little characters drawn for them each week.  
“I don’t know.” Mikey chews on his hangnail. ”It might be a while.”  
“And you want to check if you’re leaving your brother in the lurch to run the business by himself.” 

It’s not a question. Fuck. Not that easy then. “Yeah.”

“Well, you are, I guess.” Mikey’s heart sinks. He _knows_ he’s leaving Gerard to hold the baby while he runs off, but he can’t see another way. He and Pete can continue to do long distance, and it will be easier while Pete’s not touring, and things are quieter with Fall Out Boy, but long distance sucks, especially if they have a chance at something better. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.”

“Oh?”  
“I mean, if me and Linds had been doing a long distance relationship and I told you I was going to go try to make it work with her, you’d have supported me. I’m sure of it.” Mikey nods. He’d never seen Gerard so fucking ecstatic as when he met Lindsay. He’d have paid the airfare himself if Gerard had needed to go see her, and he’d happily have taken the store on single handed to help him. “So go. But be careful. And you need to hire yourself a replacement. A _good_ one, please.”

Mikey nods again. He’s waiting for another lecture on protecting himself and jumping in with both feet, and in a way he wants one this time to remind himself how big a step he and Pete are taking. But Gerard gives him a look, and then a little lopsided smile, and then an awkward half-hug and it’s even better.

With Gerard’s approval his decision is firmly cemented, even if he still has some reservations and he’s still just a little bit apprehensive. “LA here I come.”

 

*

Pete rolls his hips, agonisingly slowly, and Mikey bites his lip, because _god_ . Mikey’s on his back, balls-deep inside Pete, and Pete is hellbent on drawing things out for the afternoon. Mikey whimpers and Pete grins lazily like he’s not remotely effected by how hot it is. Pete is evil, Mikey’s sure of it.

“So the next time we fuck,” Pete breathes as he rolls his hips again, “it’ll be in LA, and you’ll be back in my bed. Our bed.” Mikey cants his hips upwards into Pete, but Pete shakes his head and presses his palm to Mikey’s hip to push him back down. 

“I like that it’ll be our bed,” Mikey says, even if that will take some time to get his head around. He’s still cautious about things moving so quickly; it’s scary as hell. It’s not that he’s moving to LA permanently and leaving his life in Jersey behind him forever, he’s still keeping his Jersey apartment for the moment, but they’re treating it like a trial run. It makes the most sense for them to make a proper go of things, and in LA, seeing as Pete will be working half of the time there anyway. 

They don’t have all the details sorted out yet, but Mikey’s so excited he could squeal. Pete’s in Jersey for a two day visit, and Mikey will follow him to LA a week later. 

Pete moves again and Mikey moans. He’s turned on enough that if his dick wasn’t already in Pete’s ass he’d be reaching for it to jerk himself off. Pete moves so fluidly, almost elegantly; lean muscles moving under taut, golden skin, he’s so beautiful, and Mikey still can’t believe sometimes – usually when they’re together like this – that he’s the one that gets to fuck him. 

“You could wear the plug on the flight, you know. That would be super hot.” Pete leans down and kisses Mikey again, with soft, open lips sliding against Mikey’s, teeth nipping as he pulls back. 

Mikey tilts his head and pushes back a handful of Pete’s sweaty hair so that he can see how dark and lidded Pete’s eyes are. Sometimes he’s not sure if Pete is serious or not, and wearing a butt plug on a cross-country flight is something that could go either way. “And I can liveblog about how I’m about to cream myself on a six hour flight,” Mikey says. He’s aiming for sarcastic, but Pete rolls his hips again so who the fuck knows anymore.

“Mmm that’d be hot,” Pete grins, and Mikey’s still none the wiser if Pete means it, not that he would consider doing it anyway.

“Yeah, after you wore it the last time, I saw Venom batting it around.” Pete makes a face, and yeah, that’s weird; it can be a butt plug or a cat toy, but not both. “Need a new one,” Mikey says and gasps when Pete leans down and bites into muscle in his chest just above his nipple. 

“I’ll get us a new one when I get back to LA. Then you can wear it for me and text me how you’re about to come in your pants every time you move.” The glint in his eye is so wicked that Mikey pushes his hips upwards again, and this time Pete lets him. They move together, Mikey grabbing at Pete’s thighs and waist as they do, and then Pete pushes him back down again, making him wait once more. The fucker.  
“Asshole.”  
“Yeah, I totally am,” Pete says as he tweaks a nipple making Mikey squirm. “But you knew that when you fell in love with me.”  
“I’m going to flip us over and fuck your brains out in a minute,” Mikey says like it’s a threat, but really it’s a promise, and Pete throws him a dirty, dirty grin.  
“Awesome,” Pete says, his grin widening. “But let me play first.” He runs both hands up over Mikey’s hips, and over the flat of his stomach. Pete closes his eyes and swivels his hips again, this time holding on tight to the base of his dick as he does which gives him away as a big faker; he’s as far gone as Mikey is. Mikey holds out, lets Pete take his time to trace over the curve of Mikey’s bicep, the vein in his neck, the dip in his hip bones, and Pete rides him so fucking slowly. They’re both close to the edge, and just when Mikey thinks he can’t last any longer he rolls Pete over and fucks him hard. They come seconds apart, Mikey’s face buried into the slope of Pete’s neck, melting against him and Pete sobbing out Mikey’s name.

All they can do is to lie there afterwards, boneless and sated and happy.

*

The only other thing that Mikey wants to do while Pete’s in Jersey (apart from have as many orgasms as they can fit into forty-eight hours) is have dinner with the guys with Pete there too. It makes sense seeing as Pete is the one who is tempting him away from his homeland.

Mikey invites everyone over to his, and they order pizzas with a little vegan one for Frank. After their last dinner together where they totally threw Mikey under the bus, Mikey suggests they all play the embarrassing story game this time.

“So Mikey probably knows most of my embarrassing stories,” Frank starts.  
“I’ve probably been part of several of them.”

“I don’t think you know this one. Before I left for college, and before I met Jamia, I had this guy I was seeing.” Mikey knows Frank had a sort-of-boyfriend then, even if Frank thought he was being super stealthy about him. “One day, I was home and my mom was at work, and he and I were in my room. Well, we were together,” he says, and there’s enough weight in the sentence for everyone to know exactly what he means, “and my mom came home to get changed before meeting her girlfriends, heard what she thought was me being attacked, and came to investigate.”

“Are you kidding?” Mikey asks in complete and utter disbelief. How has he never heard this story before?  
“I wish I was,” Frank says. “Thankfully I went off to college a few days later and we never ever spoke about it.  
“Wait,” Pete says. “You were-?”  
“Both butt naked and he was going down on me,” Frank says with a sigh.

Mikey loses it and laughs harder than he has in ages. “You were getting a blowjob and your mom walked in you. Your _mom?_ I don’t think any story can top that. My story about Pete’s housekeeper seeing me in my undies is pathetic compared to that. Your mom. Jesus.” 

“Yeah, and my housekeeper has seen much worse, _believe_ me.” Mikey’s not even touching that.  
“Nothing can top that,” Gerard says. “Pete if you want you can try, but that’s seriously shameful.”

Pete takes a minute to think. 

“Okay, most of my embarrassing stuff is freely available to browse through on the internet, so I won’t pick anything from there. There’s tons. If you’re bored go have a look.” Pete’s tone is playful, self-mocking, and Mikey gives him a little smile. Mikey’s never looked, but he’s aware that there could be enough stories about Pete to keep them entertained for the whole evening, though he’s not sure that anything could top Frank’s story. 

“I don’t think anyone would know this story,” Pete continues. “So a couple of years ago, I was seeing this girl. I brought her to a play to try to impress her, and I even managed to get really good tickets – front row centre. Alan Rickman was the lead in it, it was fucking amazing. We were so close. The play was John Gabriel Borkman, which I don’t know if you know it, but it’s pretty serious and sombre. If you don’t know it, I’m going to spoil it for you and say there’s a death scene at the end.  
“So right at the end of the play, during this harrowing death scene – I mean the guy is dying in the snow, and he’s full of regret. It’s fucking sad – I hear a phone going off. Obviously my first thought is, ‘who is the obnoxious asshole that didn’t switch their phone off.’ Who doesn’t turn their phone off at the theatre?”

Mikey winces. He’s sure he can fill in the blanks.

“Then I realise that the sound is coming from right at my feet. It’s my fucking phone.” Yeah that sounds about right.  
“Dude,” Frank says.  
“I know, right?” Pete rolls his eyes. “I had turned it off, but it was a really shitty phone that used to turn itself back on if you had an alarm set on it, and I used to have an alarm for every night at ten to remind me to take my evening meds.”

Mikey groans. That’s pretty fucking bad.

“And worse again-“  
“Worse than ruining Alan Rickman’s death scene?” Gerard asks.  
“Worse than that, my phone was in my jacket pocket, and my jacket was on the floor, so I had to fumble through all the pockets to find it. By the time I got my hands on it to turn it off, the death scene was over and I wanted to die right along with him. I think the whole theatre hated me.”

Mikey gives him a sympathetic smile. That’s pretty shit. 

“Yeah, that might win. Sorry, Frankie,” Gerard says with a little smile to Frank. Frank shrugs and looks relieved that someone has a story as mortifying as his. 

“Yeah, so when the cast took their bows at the end, Alan Rickman gave me and my date a death-glare that’s straight out of Professor Snape’s repertoire. I don’t think anyone knew it was me. I’m surprised it never ended up on gossip sites that I’m an ignorant little shit. It really was an accident.”  
“I think we can call it a tie?” Mikey says to Frank. “Your mom caught you in the act, but Alan Rickman hates Pete.”  
“And I got dumped after it,” Pete adds, and that’s just insult on top of injury. “She thought I was an idiot. All because I could never remember to take my meds.”  
“I dunno,” Frank considers. “That sounds pretty bad, but I was really enjoying myself when my mom walked in. Like really really. Sounded like a porno.”  
Mikey laughs. “As your former roommate I can confirm that you do tend to sound like a porno. No wonder your poor mom thought you were getting attacked.”  
“Fuck you!”  
“Call it a draw?” Pete offers Frank a high five, and Frank returns it with a grin.

 

Mikey’s going to miss these idiots when he’s in LA.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm [here](http://thislossofsleep.tumblr.com//) on tumblr (extra fangirling blog) <3\. Come say hi <3


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being affectionate in public with the man you love can be complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A massive thank you to [Immoral Crow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/pseuds/immoral_crow) for much needed help and beta. All mistakes and inadequacies are mine :)
> 
> I can't believe there's only four chapters left! I can almost see the finish line.

For Mikey, waking up beside Pete and remembering that he’s back in Pete’s bed in LA brings a smile to his face. Remembering that it’s sort of _their_ bed now, and that he and Pete are technically living together, makes his smile grow.

Mikey opens an eye tentatively and looks around the room. He likes Pete’s bedroom, _their_ bedroom. It’s bright and airy and spacious, and the bed itself is huge with acres of squishy soft comforter that probably cost more than Mikey’s entire bed at home.

He glances over at Pete who’s asleep stretched out on his stomach, face mostly pressed into his pillow, and he snuffles and then sighs softly. Mikey is filled with contentment, Pete looks peaceful. They had stayed up way beyond what Mikey had energy for, but he powered though, excited to be in LA, and glad to be with Pete. Now Mikey is a little tired, but it’s nothing that a morning in bed and a gallon of coffee won’t fix. Jetlag won’t beat him.

He slips out of bed quietly, trying not to shake the mattress too much. He doesn’t want to wake Pete, he just needs to take a piss, and then he’s going to get back into bed for some quality doing-nothing time. He knows that they have a few weeks of down time together, but once Pete starts into heavy writing and practice sessions it might be a little more difficult. He’ll still see Pete far more than when they were doing things long-distance, but he thinks it’s better to enjoy days like this while he can.

He pees, checks himself in the mirror – he doesn’t look too much like death for someone who travelled across the country yesterday and then had minimal sleep – and then crawls back into bed. When he’s under the covers he looks over at Pete, who’s now awake and watching him.

“Didn’t mean to wake you.”  
“S’okay. I’m going to take a leak and then we have a lot to do.”  
“We do?” Mikey asks, because he’d thought today was to be a lazy day. Pete throws a grin over his shoulder as he pads towards the ensuite, stretching his back and arms as he goes.

When Pete returns, Mikey’s busy staring into space, just thinking how surreal it feels to finally be here when Pete burrows under the covers and then settles with his back to Mikey.

“Come on, Way. Cuddle me. I told you we have a lot to do. You’re going to use our first morning together looking at the cobwebs on the ceiling?”  
“You have a housekeeper,” Mikey says, though he rolls onto his side and slings an arm around Pete’s waist. “You don’t have cobwebs.”  
“I might. I never actually check if she does anything except for laundry.”  
“Is she going to do my laundry now too? Cause that’s kinda weird. I don’t think anyone has done my laundry since my mom used to do it.”  
“If you want. You can do it yourself if you want, though. I do sometimes.” Pete sighs. “You’re wasting nice cuddle time talking about laundry, I hope you know.”  
“Sorry.”

Mikey tightens his grip around Pete’s waist, inching closer so that he chest is lined up with Pete’s back. He revels in the feeling of Pete’s skin, warm and soft against his own, and he smiles again involuntarily. Pete takes his hand and pulls it further around him, linking their fingers. 

They lie like that for a long time, or it certainly feels like hours to Mikey. He listens to the gentle in-out of Pete’s breathing, and Pete is so still that he could be asleep, but he’s stroking his thumb over Mikey’s knuckles, back and forth, back and forth, and Mikey knows he’s right there.

After another long while, Pete brings Mikey’s hand up to his mouth and gently kisses the back of it, like a prince greeting his princess, Mikey thinks idly. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Pete says.  
Mikey’s stomach swoops and soars all over again. It might be scary as hell to pack up and head across the country to be with the man he loves, but it’s the good sort of scary as hell. He kisses Pete on the shoulder. “Me too.”

There’s another moment of silence between them and then Pete breaks it by saying, “If you weren’t here, what would I do with this?” Pete pulls Mikey’s hand down to his underwear and presses it against his crotch. Pete is half hard, and Mikey laughs against Pete’s neck.

“Way to ruin a nice moment, Wentz.”  
“Oh, come _on_ ,” Pete giggles. 

Mikey presses his palm against Pete in reply, rubbing downwards, and Pete arches towards it.

“Mmm, yeah. I’m _really_ glad you’re here.”  
“That’s all you get, though.” Pete makes a little whine in protest, and Mikey just hugs his arm around Pete’s waist again, ignoring him. “It’s cuddle-time, you said it yourself. We can do rubbing-Pete’s-hard-on time later, though.”  
“Promise?”

“Maybe,” Mikey teases, but he presses a kiss to Pete’s shoulder to seal it. Mikey wants to have lazy morning sex with Pete for sure, and then maybe later they can have lazy afternoon sex, and possibly even lazy evening sex if they have any energy left. But for now he just wants to hold Pete and enjoy the moment.

Mikey closes his eyes, and they must fall asleep again at some point, because the next thing he knows, Pete is facing him with his face tucked in against Mikey’s chest, snoring softly. Mikey kisses the top of Pete’s head because they haven’t had enough moments like this up until now; quiet, unrushed, intimate. Most of the moments that they have had like this were cut short by taxi calls, bus mates, or because time just ran out too quickly. This feels like gold dust in Mikey’s hands.

Pete stirs in his sleep again. He’s usually a light sleeper and often a little restless, and Mikey holds him closer. Pete is like a furnace when he sleeps, and even though Mikey’s skin is hot and sticky everywhere they touch, he stays put. He wants Pete to wake up by himself. Pete never sleeps enough, so Mikey waits it out. 

He thinks of how crazy it feels to have packed up a selection of his belongings and flown the width of the country with them. He thinks about poor Venom getting packed off to Frank’s to terrorise the dogs (she’ll be fine, but Mikey still feels incredibly guilty, and he’s sure that she was cursing him with those last few little meows as Frank put her into her travel cage).

Mikey chances a look around the room again. Pete’s house feels as huge as it did the first time Mikey stayed there. He’s not sure he’ll get used to it, but so far Pete has made him feel really welcome. He’s cleared a section of his enormous wardrobe for Mikey’s things and another section of his stupidly big bathroom. It feels so nice to see his toothbrush cuddling itself up to Pete’s.

Finally Pete stirs again. He rubs his face in against Mikey’s chest and makes some little murmuring noises. Mikey cards Pete’s hair until he stretches and wiggles himself closer to Mikey’s body.

“You gonna make me coffee, Mikes?” His voice is quiet, but there’s a smile in there. Morning coffee negotiations are a tradition for them.  
“You should really make me coffee, you know. It’s my first morning here.”  
“But I’m so sleepy,” Pete protests and stretches again, curling his arm around Mikey’s back.  
“I’m jetlagged,” Mikey counters. It’s worth a shot.  
“I’ll make it tomorrow,” Pete says, and it comes out more like a question, like he’s trying to see if he can get away with it, but that’s Pete all over.  
“Will you though?”  
“I’ll take you out for coffee later,” Pete concludes. “To a really awesome coffee place about ten minutes away.”  
“We’d need to get dressed for that.”

Pete makes a face and rubs his hand down Mikey’s bare back. “You’ve got me there. No clothes today. I’ll help you make coffee today so that we both have to get up. Just not yet.”

That’s fine with Mikey.

“How’s this all going to work? Me being here,” Mikey says eventually, and they’ve danced around it a lot, and touched on it a little, but they’ve never gone into the fine print. Both of them were too excited at the thought of being together.

Pete touches his finger tip to Mikey’s chin and grins. “You’re my trophy man now. You just have to hang out and look good. Like when I come home you can be waiting for me, all dressed up nice by the fire. You could have a drink ready for me, or maybe bake me a pie.”

“You’re just so funny, Pete. I don’t tell you often enough,” Mikey deadpans, and Pete tickles him just enough to make him wriggle and catch Pete’s hand in his.

“Seriously? I don’t know. I mean, we can just see how it goes. You can come hang out with me when I do some stuff, some stuff you probably can’t. Not yet anyway.” It’s still a little bit of an elephant in the room as to _when_ Pete will say he’s dating someone who’s not a female and how they do it. They’re already taking such a big step with Mikey coming to LA and that’s more than enough for him at the moment. Pete wraps his arm tight around Mikey’s waist and hooks his knee around Mikey’s leg. “You can do whatever you want. Get a job, or don’t. Hang out with me all the time, or not. We’ll figure it out. But for now, we just live.”

“I like that.” Because that’s what it’s all about, right? Those little moments that all add up to living, add up to _life_. He has Pete in his arms and that’s all he needs right now. He leans in and kisses Pete softly. 

There’s still a little black box of worry that Mikey has locked up in his mind, and it’s full of things like his fears about being so far from home, getting deep into Pete’s lifestyle when it’s so far removed from his own, and the thought that they’re moving pretty quickly; going from long distance relationship to living together. He also has no idea what he’s going to _do_ all day, he’s used to being busy with the store in Jersey. It’s a big change all round. But right now, he’s living in the moment. He smiles again; there’s a lot of smiling this morning. He’s happy. “Fuck, we’re roommates. I’ve never lived with a guy like this before.”  
“Me either.”  
“We’re totally domestic now.”  
“Like, fucking-on-the-kitchen-table domestic? Or arguing-over-who-does-the-grocery-shopping domestic?” Pete asks, and that gives Mikey a gorgeous vision of bending Pete over the kitchen table and driving into him hard enough to shake the cutlery to the floor.  
“Both? We can do both.”  
“Good. Is it rubbing-Pete’s-hard-on time yet?” Pete asks with the arch of an eyebrow.

Mikey pretends to consider his answer, making little thoughtful noises and chewing on his lip, but Pete is so close, and he’s warm and familiar, so it’s no contest. “Yeah, I think it might be.”

Spooned-together, lazy morning sex is the best thing ever, Mikey decides, and they don’t surface until well after lunchtime.

*

Their first few weeks together are like a long vacation. It’s much needed down time for the band, and Mikey is not going to argue because it means he gets Pete to himself. Mostly to himself, at least, because Pete is almost incapable of not working. Whether it’s a quick interview or an appearance on a morning radio show, Pete can’t help himself. He has obligations beyond just the band too, with his record label and what feels like a hundred other projects going on. Mikey’s still not complaining though, because he has more of Pete now than he ever did before.

When Pete has to work, Mikey sometimes goes with him and hangs out, sometimes almost acting like his PA. Other times he goes sightseeing, stays in the house and reads, or runs errands. He’s even done a few orders and accounting stuff for the store to help Gerard out seeing as he pretty much left him to deal with everything when he skipped town. 

Being out here in LA with Pete starts to feel like everyday life, though. Sitting in Pete’s kitchen in his underwear while Pete makes him morning toast and coffee is something he’s getting used to very easily. 

The only thing that has been irking Mikey at all, is the fact that if they’re anywhere other than Pete’s house, he feels like he and Pete could just be buddies. He’s never pushed Pete to be open about them, and he swore to himself that he never would. He knows that there is much more on the line for Pete than for him. There’s consequences, but it doesn’t stop him from wanting to put his head on Pete’s shoulder when they’re out if he so wishes. He knows Pete feels the same though, and he knows it won’t be for much longer. They’ve talked about it, but they can’t figure out when is the correct time to confirm that Pete has a boyfriend.

The first time Pete kisses him in public, it’s out of frustration, like a big ‘fuck you’ to people saying he’s closeted, or ashamed of who he is.

They’re on their way to a little bistro for a late lunch and Pete just takes hold of Mikey’s hand. They’re in the middle of the street so Mikey gives him a raised eyebrow in question. It’s partly ‘what’s going on?’ and partly ‘are you sure?’, because it feels like a big thing.

“Fuck it,” Pete says. He pulls Mikey into the side of the street and out of the way of passers-by, and kisses him right there in the middle of downtown LA. It startles Mikey and he tries to pull back, but Pete has a fistful of his shirt and kisses him hard.

“Pete-“  
“I’m tired of hiding.”  
“But-“  
“I’m not going to be ashamed of this, of you.”  
“That’s not what I was going to say.”  
“Then what?” Pete asks, finally releasing his grip on Mikey’s shirt.

“There’s a difference between not hiding and publicly parading. There’s a middle ground.” He squeezes Pete’s fingers. “We don’t have to jump off the roof, we can take the stairs and we still get to the ground.” Pete scowls like he’s fucked up. “And I never thought you were ashamed for a second.”

“Sorry. I just thought-“

“I know,” Mikey says, and he sounds annoyed but he really isn’t, he’s just a little overwhelmed. Pete looks somewhere between panicked and lost. “I’m cool with this if it’s what you want, but just hold my hand. Let’s start there. Doesn’t even have to be today. It’s okay. No need for making out in public and causing a scene just to prove a point, okay?”

No one on the street seems to even notice Pete’s grand gesture but it shifts something between them and Pete is much more relaxed after that; he sits closer to Mikey when they’re out, there’s more little touches, flirting, and occasionally there’s even some handholding. In public. Where people can see. Shock horror.

When he and Pete started dating it was all hush-hush, and it was difficult not being able to touch Pete in public or tell many people that they were a thing. Now they’re more relaxed about it because Pete knows he won’t be keeping Mikey secret for much longer, and there’s not much point trying seeing as they’re living together now. It means that there’s public attention to deal with though, and Mikey finds that difficult too, just in a different way. 

The first proper gossip-rag picture of them holding hands hits soon after, and this time they even know Mikey’s name. It’s very, very strange for Mikey and he doesn’t let himself spend too much time thinking about it. There’s another obnoxious caption with it which is even stranger. Pete seems less stressed about it; he’s used to tabloid attention, and he has been prepared for something like this since they started dating.

Pete tells him – because Mikey doesn’t actually go looking – that there’s one or two other pictures of them that have shown up, but only far away, blurry and stupid pictures – Pete’s words – so nothing to worry about. 

Just as Mikey suspected, word reaches New Jersey that he and Pete are out in an almost official way now, though he would have told the guys anyway.

"Are you okay with it? With people knowing?" Gerard asks when Mikey calls the store to chat.  
“Yeah, I mean it was going to happen eventually.”

“Is Pete okay with it?”  
“Kind of, I guess. He denied it in one interview. Point blank said we were just friends. The guy asked if Pete holds hands with all his friends, and Pete said yes.” Mikey doesn’t say that Pete had said he almost followed it with a pissed off, “I’ll suck my friend’s dicks if they ask nicely, too,” because there’s no need to repeat that. “But he told another interviewer he’s seeing someone, so I don’t know. It’s all weird politics.” Pete is still enjoying both winding people up and keeping his personal life to himself for once, and Mikey can’t really blame him. 

“It sounds it.”  
“It’s nice to be able to be normal with him a bit more, though. Like, I’m not as scared I’m going to accidentally out us and ruin his career, or something.”  
“That’s important.” There’s some background noise that Mikey can’t decipher. “I have a customer. Hang on.” 

Mikey waits and hears faint voices and the beep of the register.

“So everything in the store is good?” Mikey asks.  
“Yeah it’s the same. The new guy is actually great. It’s the same, but it’s not. I miss you.” 

Mikey feels a little pang of jealousy over the guy he hired, and he really misses Gerard and the store. “I miss you too. I miss the store.”

A day later Franks calls him up.

“You don’t miss us, Mikes. You just think you do.”  
“Nah, I do a little.”  
“Thought you’d be too busy living your high flying life.” Though Frank’s tone is playful mocking and one Mikey’s more than used to. “Apparently you were holding hands with some rock star deviant.”  
“You saw that, huh?”  
“Are you kidding me? I would never miss my friend in the gossip pages. I put that shit on the refrigerator.” 

Mikey laughs. He’d probably do the same if it was reversed but he feels a bit silly. “It’s just weird. No one other than you guys and maybe my mom ever cared who I dated.”

“How has the reaction been over all?” Frank asks.  
“Pretty okay I guess,” Mikey starts, and then carefully adds, “But there’s been a bit of shit. I think Pete has gotten some abuse on the internet with some choice homophobic language, and I got one or two, but we kind of expected it. Some people like to be assholes.” Yes, they expected some backlash, but it still doesn’t feel nice to be on the receiving end of it, though Mikey doesn’t say as much. “Is Venom behaving herself?”  
“God, no! But she has Sweetpea wrapped around her paw so she’s getting away with any bad-cat behaviour pretty easily.”  
“Sounds about right. I miss that fluffy hellraiser.” 

He's a little cautious, though. He's not sure how he’d deal with it if things get harder. He knows that Pete has had so many intrusive articles, journalists and paparazzi to deal with in the past .The whole concept seems slightly daunting, so he's glad that it’s all been tame in comparison to that.

*

Pete has a meeting one morning in a section of central LA, and it’s Beverly Something, or Melrose Something, or maybe even Santa Monica Something. Mikey’s still getting used to all the addresses, but he’s sure it’s one of the famous ones anyway. Mikey meets him right after, and they head out to get coffee and take a walk. 

A guy and a girl approach Pete and ask for photographs with him. Mikey is slowly getting used to people spotting Pete and stopping him in the street. It still feels odd, but he offers to take the pictures because at least then he can be useful. Pete smiles in one and sticks his tongue out in the other, but he’s polite and spends several minutes talking with both of them. While the girl is showing Pete some fan art on her phone, the guy looks Mikey up and down like he’s trying to get the measure of him. Pete says goodbye and steps away, and Mikey doesn’t think about it again.

A day later, he and Pete are watching a movie in bed – which neither of them are paying much attention to – and Pete has his laptop out. He’s flicking between browser windows and scrolling through endless things that Mikey can’t even see, and mostly Pete doesn’t react, until he hovers over one picture in particular. 

“Hey, there’s those people we met the other day.” He squints at the screen, reading what’s under the picture. “That asshole.”  
“What?”  
“Well that’s just fucking rude.”  
“What?” Mikey’s starting to feel a little anxious, like it’s something really terrible. But it can’t possibly be, because that guy and girl were nice.  
“You might not want to know.”  
“Pete!” Mikey _needs_ to know now.  
“I was fucking nice to them. He’s just fucking rude.” He turns the laptop around so that Mikey can see the screen and glances at the photo. When he starts reading what’s below he has to take the laptop from Pete’s hands to see it fully. 

_met Pete Wentz in LA. pretty sure he was with that guy who’s supposed to be his boyf. Pete can totally do better._

“Hmm,” is all Mikey says. He feels a bit grim. It’s not a nice thing to read, but from Pete’s reaction he thought it would be much worse. He passes the laptop back to Pete without looking at it more. “Yeah, I’m not sure I like the internet today.”

“I’m fucking replying to him.” Pete starts furiously typing and Mikey has to reach his hand across the keyboard to stop him.

“You’re not.” 

Mikey would like to reply too. He’d like to tell that guy to mind his own fucking business, and that maybe his opinion is fuelled by jealousy that Mikey is dating the guy’s idol and he never will. Part of Mikey thinks maybe that the guy is right, but Mikey is blatantly ignoring that part. Regardless of whether Mikey likes it or not though, it won’t do any good to reply and it will cause trouble, and if Pete replies to him it will cause a lot of trouble, the guy is just a teenager. Mikey can’t let either of them fly off the handle even if it would feel quite satisfying.

“I fucking am.”  
“Please don’t. What good will it do?”

Pete scowls and stares at Mikey, but he doesn’t take his fingers from the keys. “I don’t know. But it’s fucking rude.” 

Mikey takes the laptop from Pete’s hands, though Pete doesn’t give it willingly, and Mikey closes it with Pete’s half written reply still on the screen. Pete’s scowl deepens and he glances at the nightstand beside him like he might reach for his phone and reply on that instead, but then he sighs. 

“Fine. But it’s fucking rude. And he’s fucking wrong.”

“Good,” Mikey sighs too, though right now he doesn’t feel so good. “Fine,” and then, “You can’t do better than me?”  
“Nope. I sure can’t, Mikeyway.” He puts his head on Mikey’s shoulder and stares up at him with puppy dog eyes that would sway Satan himself. Finally Mikey’s face breaks into a little smile and Pete moves to kiss him, but stops and rubs his thumb over Mikey’s bottom lip instead. 

“You will learn, Mikey, that there’s some shit that comes with this sometimes. I’ll keep you away from it if I can but some of it will probably seep through. You’ll probably have to learn to ignore some stuff.”

That means a lot to Mikey because he knows that Pete gets a lot of abuse thrown at him at times. He’s seen some of it, and Pete has told him bits and pieces, and it’s sweet that Pete wants to protect him. He disregards the idea that he will need to learn to ignore it, because that sounds too hard right now. “Thanks. I don’t know why I care. It’s only one opinion.”

“Because it’s hard not to. I get that. Really.” Mikey believes him, because Pete knows what he’s talking about.

Mikey tips his head down and catches Pete in a kiss. “Maybe I can pay you back by talking you out of doing stupid things like bitching people out on the internet.” He presses his forehead to Pete’s.

“Good luck with that,” Pete says, and kisses him again, licking Mikey’s bottom lip. “That could be a full time job.” 

Mikey tugs him closer and presses himself to as much of Pete as he can reach. He smiles against Pete’s mouth because now that stupid comment left by someone with too many opinions is inadvertently going to get him laid.

In the end Pete updates twitter with a passive aggressive tweet that says _some people are just fucking rude_ , and nothing more. 

*

“Should we just put something up?” Pete asks.

“What?” Mikey looks up from what he’s reading. He has his feet up on the end table and when he sees Pete carrying two mugs back from the kitchen he puts away his book and puts his feet back on the floor.

“On the internet. A picture? People are talking, and they know but they don’t know, right? There’s pictures of us, but no proper ones. And we are going to look way cuter in one we take ourselves versus a paparazzi picture. It might stop people guessing and being jerks,” Pete shrugs. 

They’ve been around this a few times. There’s enough rumours and unofficial photographs floating around that he and Pete are no longer a secret, it just hasn’t been confirmed by Pete or his management yet. While Mikey usually fights the idea of any sort of announcement, he knows he will give in sooner or later, and maybe if they do it themselves he will at least feel like he has some control over it.

“Okay then. What kind of picture?” Mikey says. Pete is grinning, so Mikey adds with as much sarcasm as he can muster, “A cute one where we’re holding hands and kissing?” He’s not sure if he and Pete will have to same view on what an appropriate picture will be.  
“No, one where you’re rimming me,” Pete counters. Mikey flips him off and Pete tries to grab his finger.  
“Hilarious,” he deadpans. “How about just a picture with both of us in it? Doesn’t have to be any words with it. Just a picture?”

“Yeah, let’s do it.” 

Despite the fact that Pete’s phone is already full of pictures of them together, he insists on taking what feels like hundreds of pictures in different locations around the house trying to find one that’s right, where they both look great, the lighting is right, and it has the correct back drop. 

Mikey rolls his eyes when Pete pushes him out onto the deck to take one in the sunlight, but when he looks at the screen it seems perfect. They both have sunglasses on, and Pete’s hair is a little mussed but they look like a great couple and Mikey’s really happy with it. They do take another one where they’re kissing but Pete promises that it’s just for him, for his growing collection. Pete loves pictures of them like that, and Mikey is starting to, too.

“Do it. Post it,” Mikey says so that he won’t change his mind. Pete gleefully uploads it, then puts his phone down and sits in Mikey’s lap for the rest of the evening without even mentioning the internet.

The picture gets a lot of attention, most of it good. Pete doesn’t tell Mikey about any nasty comments or snide articles, but Mikey sneaks a look and then regrets it. The rumours are very much present at this point, and while Pete hasn’t come out and confirmed that he has a boyfriend, that’s a technicality. 

Everyone knows now.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikey lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding. He leans in close to Pete and says, “I feel like I’ve tumbled down the rabbit hole.”  
> “You have. Welcome to Wonderland, Mikes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to [Immoral Crow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/pseuds/immoral_crow) for much needed help and beta. All inadequacies and post-beta fucking around belong to me :)

It’s incredibly strange for Mikey to think that anyone other than close friends or family cares about his love life, but since he and Pete are more open about things, and since there has been blatant pictures of them being affectionate with each other, people seem to want to know. 

Other than the pictures that have shown up of them, and the single, solitary picture they posted themselves, people have put two and two together and found Mikey on social media too. His follower count has increased by a stupid amount, and judging by the user names they are mostly Pete’s fans. Mikey doesn’t mind too much, the vast majority are polite and respectful and quite friendly. It just feels odd for strangers to want to talk with him, just because he knows Pete.

There’s even a few kids who have messaged Pete and said that seeing Pete in a same sex relationship encouraged them to come out, which is pretty awesome stuff.

Pete has been asked in almost every interview he's done since they posted their picture if he’s gay. In almost every interview he’s done since then, he has had to explain that gay and bisexual are in fact two different things, and that dating a man does not mean he’s suddenly gay, in the same way that dating a woman does not mean he’s suddenly straight. Who knew that no one actually understands the concept? Mikey is baffled, and yet not that surprised.

Mikey’s more than aware that one or two of Pete’s relationships have been pretty public with lots of the details ending up being public knowledge. He and Pete have spoken about it briefly before but seeing as people now know about them Mikey decides the approach the subject again.

The idea is to set out some sort of guidelines for Pete. It’s not really to censor him – Mikey doesn’t think that would ever be possible, nor would he want to try – but more to discuss what each of them are comfortable with sharing when people start asking nosey questions. He doesn’t mind Pete sharing some details, but there’s a line where it goes into over-sharing territory and Mikey doesn’t want his friends and family reading or seeing something embarrassing or intimate.

It starts as conversation on the drive to get groceries and continues while they wander around the supermarket.

“What if someone asks are you good in bed?” Pete asks innocently, as if it’s acceptable for interviewers or fans to ask _anyone_ what their partner is like between the sheets.

“Pete,” Mikey says, and there’s a warning in his voice, but then he thinks about it for approximately one second and says, “tell them I’m amazing of course.” There’s no other answer to that question.

“Well it wouldn’t be a lie,” Pete grins. “But what I mean is do I say you rock my world, or give them shit for asking in the first place. It’s a shitty question.”  
“Hopefully people won’t ask.” Though judging by some of the other crazy and intrusive questions that Pete has been asked in the past, it’s a possibility.

“Can I tell people how we met?” Pete asks.  
“That you approached me in a seedy New Jersey bar and tried to take me home? Sure,” Mikey says and Pete pinches his side until he squirms.

“I’ll say it nicer than that. That our eyes met across a crowded room.” Pete looks wistful for a second and then grins. “And then I tried to take you home.” They walk around the fresh fruits and vegetables section and as Pete picks up some fruit for morning smoothies, he leans in close and whispers in Mikey’s ear, “Can I say you fucked me on our first date?”  
“No.” But Mikey hopes that was never really going to be something Pete would give away, and really who would ever ask that sort of question anyway? Mikey’s not ashamed, it’s just something that should be kept for them.

“Can I say you liked it when I did that thing with my tongue last night?” Pete whispers, and Mikey just laughs. There’s no need to answer that one, though a little shiver shoots through him at the memory. Pete continues, “What about if anyone asks if it’s serious between us?”  
“I came to LA with no date to go home. Feels pretty serious?” Mikey says with a raised eyebrow. He had thought that by now it was unsaid that they were serious, but it’s still okay that Pete is asking. It lets him check that they’re on the same page.  
“Thought so.” Pete takes his hand in the dairy isle. “Me too. Just checking.” They don’t do a lot of kissing in public, but Pete gives him a little peck on the lips and Mikey wants to devour Pete whole.

“Can I tell them day to day stuff about you if anyone asks? Can I tell them about Killjoys?”  
“Sure. Free advertising is always good.” Mikey knows that Gerard would be thrilled with any extra business, even if the store is already doing well. “You can tell them day to day stuff, but it depends on what it is. Most of it is boring.”  
“Not boring at all. I’ll tell them interesting things.”  
“Just not the _really_ interesting things, okay?” Pete grins in reply and Mikey hopes he’s getting his point across.

They finish their grocery shopping only breaking hands when one of them needs to pick something up to throw it into the basket that Mikey’s carrying. 

“Okay, look,” Pete says on their way back across the parking lot. “I’ll try to keep my big mouth shut about the intimate details of our relationship, and definitely not tell people you like it when I do that thing with my tongue.” Mikey laughs again, because _that_ thing would be censored out of most interviews anyway. “But I’m shitty at filtering myself sometimes. I forget that I’m giving information away to potentially thousands of people. Sometimes it just feels like a funny thing to say and I don’t think of the consequences. I’ll work on it.”

“Thanks.” Mikey squeezes Pete’s fingers, and Pete drops his hand to slide his arm low around Mikey’s waist instead. “What if people ask me about you? That’s really likely, you know. I’m not the interesting one.”  
“Yeah, but you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to. Give away as much or as little as you want, I don’t care. I trust you, I’ll leave it for you to decide.”  
“So I can tell them you dance naked to pop songs when you make me coffee in the morning sometimes? Or that you currently have about twenty bruises on your thighs and chest, that are all my handiwork?” 

“If you want,” Pete says slowly. Mikey would never give those sort of details away and they both know it, but it’s fun to tease. “Though I don’t think it would come as a surprise to many people, especially that I dance naked.”

“What if I go the opposite way and start being all cutesy if people ask about you,” Mikey asks with a grin. “I mean, do people know just _how_ adorable you are?”  
Pete gives him a sideways glance and grins. “Like ‘he’s the best at snuggling,’ that kind of thing?”  
“Worse. Though you’re pretty snuggly. I could be all slushy and mushy.”  
“You can, but the internet will eat that shit up so be careful. It could be sickeningly cute.” Pete puts the groceries in the trunk and walks to stand right in front of Mikey, kissing him on the nose.

“We are pretty sickening though, right?”  
Pete grins. “Totally.” 

 

The first time Pete mentions their relationship properly in an interview it’s to answer the question, “What helps you stay grounded?”

First Pete answers sarcastically. “Gravity,” he says. “Like most people.” But he waits a beat after he gets his laugh and then answers honestly. “There’s this guy in my life, he keeps me pretty grounded. He has no problem telling me off if I’m even thinking of acting like a brat. I’m pretty lucky.” The interviewer just smiles at his answer like she understands, and doesn’t press any further.

Mikey’s heart swells up to the point that he thinks it might burst when he sees it.

The first time Pete gives away more details than he should, Mikey is in the next room. It’s an interview with just Pete and not the rest of the band, and Mikey is waiting for him to finish so that they can go grab lunch.  
When Pete emerges, he says nothing and just takes his hand.

“How’d it go?” Mikey asks.

Pete makes a non-descriptive noise in answer, so Mikey asks again. Pete gives him a wary look and says, “Don’t get mad at me, okay?”

Obviously Mikey is now curious as fuck, because he has no reason - so far - to get mad at Pete, but his heart beats a little faster. “I’ll try.”

“Okay, so I may have given out a tiny extra few details more than I had intended to.” Pete makes a face and shows Mikey his thumb and forefinger an inch apart to demonstrate how tiny.  
“Like what?” Mikey asks cautiously, wondering if he actually wants to know at all.  
“Well the guy who was interviewing me asked a few questions about us.”  
“Okay,” Mikey says slowly, tentatively.

“I mean, it was nothing _too_ intimate, but I did sort of say about your little hotspot. You know that weird extra-sensitive bit of skin inside your elbow that drives you wild when I suck on it? It’s not like I gave him specifics, though. Like, I didn’t actually _say_ I suck on it, just that everyone has different likes and that’s one of yours.” He cringes when he’s finished talking and looks like he knows he wasn’t supposed to give those sort of details away, but Mikey can feel his cheeks burning at even the thought of people knowing that.

“Pete!”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“I thought we talked about this? How did that even come up?”

“He was asking me if it’s different dating a dude, and I said it’s different dating _anyone,_ like everyone is different. You learn about the person you’re with and you learn all their little intricacies. Like erogenous elbows.” Mikey gives him a murderous look. “I just forgot. The guy was so chatty and I just got carried away.” He looks sheepish and he squeezes Mikey’s hand tight. “Sorry.”

Mikey doesn’t say anything as they get into the car. He’s sulking a little, but mostly he’s embarrassed. He’s driving today, so he keeps his eyes on the road and stays quiet until they’re a couple of blocks from the restaurant. From the corner of his eye he can see Pete giving him furtive glances.

“Are you mad? Like, really mad?” Pete finally asks.  
“I’m a little mad, though I’m more embarrassed. I’m not used to sharing personal stuff like that.”  
“I get that, I think my filter still needs some work.” Yes, it does. “You don’t want to know what I almost said, though. Could have been much worse.”  
Mikey just gives him a look. “I’m sure it could have been. Not the fucking point though.”  
“Yeah, okay.” 

In the parking lot, Mikey presses the clicker and locks the doors as Pete rounds the car to stand beside him. He lifts his sunglasses up so that Mikey can see his eyes. “Tell you what. Call it an IOU or a blank cheque or whatever. I’ve fucked up and I owe you something awesome of your choosing. It can be a thing or a favour, or you get to out one of my kinks. Whatever. I won’t get mad. I’m sorry.”

Mikey thinks as they walk towards the door of the restaurant (a little café they’ve been to a dozen times before that sells the best salted caramel cookies he’s ever tasted). He has no idea what he will use his IOU on, but with Pete it’s always useful to have a favour in hand. “Okay. Deal. But you still have to be careful and keep your big fucking mouth shut in future.”

Pete looks like he’s trying to hide a smile, and there’s a glint in his eye that usually turns Mikey’s insides to water. “You like my big mouth.”  
“Pete!” Mischievous glint or not, Pete needs a warning.  
“Okay. I’ll do my best.” 

It doesn’t sound quite like a promise to Mikey but he’ll take it. 

The next time Pete is asked the same question, “Is it different dating a guy, than a girl?” Pete simply answers, “Yes, and it’s fucking amazing,” and Mikey thinks he might, maybe, sort of, a little bit forgive Pete for his previous oversharing. 

*

Pete asks if Mikey wants to come to an event, and Mikey’s gut reaction is _no no no_ before he even hears what it is. He’s fine with being a public with Pete now, and they go out quite a bit, but it’s usually just daytime stuff or quiet dinners. Mikey tags along with Pete for interviews sometimes too and hangs around in the background, but they haven’t gone to any sort of social event or anything that will involve the media where Mikey might be on show. He knows it’s coming, though.

At this particular event there will be some press and some fans and too many people all round. It sounds like going to a party and not knowing a single person, but that everyone will probably be staring at him because he’s with Pete. 

 

“Do I have to go?”  
Pete tilts his head and frowns a little. “Do you not want to?”  
Mikey makes a face. Even though it would be a big deal for them to be at a public event together, Pete is well versed in being in being scrutinised by people. Mikey’s a complete virgin in this area, and he feels more than a little concerned at the thought. “Not really.”  
“It’ll be fine though, honest. It’s just a thing. You’ll look super-hot and no one will even look at me unless it’s to ask who the hot man on my arm is.” Mikey swallows. Yeah, that’s the opposite of what he wants. It feels daunting.

“Can I not go?”

“Of course you don’t have to go. I’m not going to put a gun to your head.” Pete’s tone pisses Mikey off a little. He makes it sound like it’s nothing big, and for Pete it probably isn’t. Even if it’s a big thing for them to go to one of these events as a couple, Pete goes to them all the time, ho hum. For Mikey it’s more than a little scary. “But you don’t have to be nervous or whatever.” 

Mikey’s unimpressed face remains firmly in place until Pete takes hold of his hand. “Skip this one. Come to the next thing if you want?” Mikey’s thinking he might skip the next one too but he doesn’t say as much. 

Pete goes anyway and he seems to understand, though Mikey’s mood doesn’t really shift. He’s in bed and almost asleep when Pete gets home. It’s late, but Mikey left half of the lights on for him and when Pete comes upstairs he’s full of energy and a little tipsy. He climbs onto the bed fully dressed and spills the contents of his event goodie bag onto the bed covers. Mikey can’t even pretend to be asleep, and he thinks that Pete would wake him right now anyway, so he sits up and accepts the beer-scented kiss that Pete offers him, and he watches as Pete picks through his haul.

“It’s mostly crap, promotional stuff usually, but sometimes there’s cool stuff in these things.” 

There’s a shirt by a sponsoring brand, a fancy little activity tracker, some high end men’s cosmetics and a few little trinkets. 

He flings the activity tracker in Mikey’s direction. “You want this? Oh, and this is awesome, you gotta try this.” He tosses a bar of fancy looking soap over towards Mikey too. “Smell it!”

“Pete-“  
“No seriously, smell it. It’s awesome. Smells like fucking cupcakes or something.” He picks it up and thrusts it at Mikey until Mikey leans in to give it a sniff. 

Pete’s in a far better humour than Mikey. It’s not that Mikey’s not pleased that Pete had a good evening, he’s just a little angry at himself for chickening out of going. It was a relatively low key evening in comparison to some of the things that Pete gets invited to and he’s spent the evening kicking himself for not using it as some sort of training wheels for if – and when – he goes to something bigger with Pete. 

Pete pulls a few more knickknacks out of the end of the bag and throws something at Mikey, giving him a little fright. When he picks it up, it’s a little bottle of some sort of expensive massage oil. He looks up, and Pete is grinning. 

Mikey rolls his eyes. “Kinda tired,” He says, pre-emptively putting a stop to any plans that Pete has that might involve said oil. 

Pete sticks his tongue out him, but he clears away the contents of his goodie bag onto the chair on the other side of the room. Mikey watches him strip off his jeans and long sleeve shirt and then he crawls onto the bed again, this time getting under the covers. He settles down and curls himself around Mikey, who’s now facing the opposite direction. “You should have come, Mikes.” 

Mikey makes an unintelligible noise in reply.

“I missed you,” Pete murmurs and rubs his nose down the back of Mikey’s neck, sending a tingle down Mikey’s spine.  
“You were only gone a few hours, Pete.”  
“Not what I mean. Would be nice to have you with me at some of those things now that you’re not my big secret,” he says and wraps his arm tight around Mikey’s waist. He places a few small kisses on Mikey’s neck and shoulder and it makes the little hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. Pete’s a warm, comforting weight at his back even if Mikey’s in a bad mood. “I know it’s scary. I know you don’t really want to, and you don’t have to, but it would be cool if you did.”

Mikey turns over so that he can see Pete. Pete’s eyes look a little tired but happy. “I know,” Mikey concedes. “I’m mad at myself for not going tonight. I chickened out.”

“It’s not like I’m going to abandon you there forever. Most of it is like a nightclub or a show, but with press outside.” Mikey goes to open his mouth to protest about the thought of press, but Pete hold a finger to his lips to stop him. “And we can skip the press if you really want to. Just run by them.”  
“I can wear the activity tracker while I run,” Mikey offers, finally in a better mood.  
“There you go!” Pete kisses him and softly brushes his hair off his face.

“So do only famous people get those bags of free things or would we have gone home with two cupcake soaps?”  
“We’d probably get two. Companies just want people to show off their merchandise. But I’ll always give you my goodie bag,” Pete says, and his tone is so fond. Mikey knows that’s a cheesy as fuck line but he still melts inside. He kisses Pete, harder this time, and slides his hand down Pete’s bare chest, and then around to rub over his ass, first over the cotton of Pete’s underwear, and then underneath it.

Pete hums happily and breathes Mikey in. “Thought you were tired?”  
“Yeah, but then you took off your clothes and started kissing my neck and promising me soap.” He laughs as Pete kisses him again and pulls him closer. “What’s a guy to do?”

*

Mikey goes to the next event. It’s not like he has to walk down the red carpet at the Oscars, it’s just a small event – one approved by Pete’s management to let them ‘out’ themselves without it being as big a deal as it could be – but Mikey feels so nervous all day that he even thinks he might back out. It’s the first proper public event for him and Pete as a couple, so it feels like a big deal. 

The event is in LA, so they don’t need to travel for it. Pete suggests that they get ready together, dragging Mikey into the shower with him, and then picking out awesome things for them both to wear so their clothes complement each other. They stand in a full length mirror and Mikey thinks they look great together. 

Mikey’s hair has been blonde for a while, and tonight it’s slicked back and freshly shaven at the sides and nape, while Pete’s is flat ironed and spiked up perfectly. They’re both wearing skinny jeans in varying shades of faded charcoal, tight in the right places, and Pete got Mikey killer black combat boots which Mikey could kick some serious ass in. It’s weird, but for once he thinks he looks the part of _Rockstar’s Boyfriend_ and not the charlatan he usually feels.

Pete takes a picture of them in the mirror, which he instantly uploads to the internet. After that first photograph of them got such a good response, it pretty much opened a floodgate for Pete who is snap happy and eager to share little moments of their life with his fans. He then takes another picture, one that’s just for himself, where Pete is kissing Mikey carefully on the cheek. He tries to take a third and fourth picture to show the internet how great Mikey’s ass looks in the jeans he picked out, but they’re just a blur as Mikey threatens to kick Pete’s phone out of his hand. It’s heading for a play-wrestling match – “watch my fucking hair!”, “watch it yourself! You started it!” – but their ride arrives and interrupts it.

It’s a relatively low-key event, and there’s minimal press outside the venue, but Pete keeps his word; they walk briskly past anyone waiting, not stopping to answer questions or pose for cameras for any longer than a second or two. Pete just gives a few little waves and never lets go of Mikey’s hand the entire time.

It’s a little bit terrifying. It’s loud and bright and even though this is a smaller event than some that Pete goes to, Mikey feels like there’s so many people all staring at him, even if they’re really more interested in Pete. 

Pete is nervous too, he told Mikey so. It’s a big thing for both of them, but you’d never know it from Pete’s demeanour; confident and at ease. Mikey hears a few people calling Pete’s name and Pete just smiles quickly. The flashbulbs go off, and on they walk. 

When they get inside the door of the venue, Mikey lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding. He leans in close to Pete and says, “I feel like I’ve tumbled down the rabbit hole.”  
“You have. Welcome to Wonderland, Mikes.”

Maybe it’s something Mikey could learn to get used to, and it’s not quite as terrifying as he imagined seeing as Pete is with him, holding onto him tightly, but it feels surreal, and like something out of a reality tv show rather than his life.

The next thing they go to together is easier, and Mikey feels more comfortable considering the first one went so well. It’s a one day festival hosted by a radio station and Pete is working at it. Fall Out Boy are on the bill to play a set and Pete has to announce another artist, so he will have to abandon Mikey at some points but Mikey’s prepared himself for that. 

It’s very different to being back stage at one of Fall Out Boy’s own shows, in that there are people _everywhere_ , all milling around, and everyone seems to be actually busy either doing something or going somewhere. Mikey finds it quite interesting to watch, comparing it to a train station or a busy airport terminal. He could spend all day people-watching personal assistants trying to get things organised and performing artists being ushered from place to place. There’s people who seem to be tech or sound engineers that run frantically by him, and a few people that are obviously fans, as the look about as out of place as Mikey, except they look as though they’re quietly freaking out and Mikey’s strangely calm. There’s so many people around that no one really cares too much at the moment about who Pete is holding hands with.

Fall Out Boy’s set is great and Mikey gets to watch from side stage. It’s much shorter than any of their shows he went to before, but the atmosphere is electric. The rest of the evening they mostly spend wandering around, and it’s sort of fun to be part of a big event like this without actually having to do anything else but enjoy it. Pete only abandons him when he absolutely has to, which is not that much over all. 

It’s near the end of the night, and Pete is whisked away for something, but promises he’ll be back soon. Mikey’s so much more at ease by now, and he’s almost wondering why he was so goddamn nervous before. He sits on one end of a sofa on his own and fiddles with his phone, checks the time, does some people watching and stares into space.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees a girl standing on her own, and when he turns her head to glance at her, she smiles a little and then heads for the sofa. She’s very pretty and Mikey notices that her skirt rides right up her thighs when she sits. She’s sitting very close to him but Mikey smiles politely, because he’s not sure who she is or what else he’s supposed to do here. She asks sweetly if it’s okay that she join him, points out a very attractive man in the corner and explains that she’s trying to make him jealous. Mikey laughs, he’s never been used by a decoy before.

He winds up talking to her while he waits for Pete and she’s very sweet and friendly. She asks if he’s here alone and when Mikey explains that’s he’s here with Pete, she gets all excited – telling Mikey she’s a Fall Out Boy fan, and even has a teeny crush on Pete – and it makes Mikey smile. She’s very down to earth and highly entertaining, especially considering that Mikey had been staring into space before that. They wind up chatting for the rest of the time that Mikey’s waiting on Pete, so much so that he only notices that Pete is back when he feels a tap on his shoulder.

“Am I interrupting?” Pete asks, and he looks put out, but Mikey assumes that that’s because it’s the end of a long night.  
“Not at all. Ready to go?”  
“Yep.”

Mikey’s new friend grins like a maniac when he introduces her to Pete and they take a quick picture together, but Pete seems eager to leave. 

Pete is quiet on the way home, which is a shame because after most of these things he’s been to own his own, he’s in a better mood than when he left the house, usually fuelled by adrenaline and endorphins. 

Mikey waits until they are pulling into the garage before he opens his mouth. “Is something up? Was tonight not a good night? I had fun.”  
“I bet you did.” There’s tension is Pete’s voice that Mikey could spot a mile away.  
“Seriously, is something wrong?”

Pete is silent as he turns off the head lights and fiddles with his seat belt. They leave the garage and make their way into the house. Pete doesn’t look at Mikey the whole time. 

“That girl,” Pete says finally, once they’re in the hallway. “The one who was all over you.”

“That’s what this is about?” 

Mikey is aware of Pete’s jealous streak. Apart from the fact that Pete actually _told_ him that he gets jealous easily, Mikey has seen it first-hand. Once when they went for dinner, the waiter openly flirted with Mikey more than once during their meal. Pete was less than pleased, even though Mikey had pointed out that there was no indication that he and Pete were in any way a couple. Mikey also noted that he often saw people openly fling themselves at Pete both in real life and on the internet, and Pete was cranky for at least half an hour. After much reassurance from Mikey that he was not going to ditch Pete and make out with the waiter in the coat room, Pete took the restaurant off his mental black list but gave the waiter a murderous look on their way out.

“What else would it be about?” Pete asks and he’s staring at Mikey, clearly pissed off now. “I wasn’t even gone that long and she was all over you. You didn’t seem to mind.”

“Whoa, Pete.” Pete tires to interrupt but Mikey holds up a finger to stop him and Pete thankfully stays quiet. “First off. She wasn’t all over me, not even close. Secondly, I told her up front that I have a boyfriend and I wasn’t interested.” Pete tries to cut in again and Mikey gives him a look that stops him. “And thirdly, all we did was talk about you, you fucking idiot.”

Pete, who has been looking at the floor or the wall sullenly, now looks back up at Mikey, eyebrows raised and looking a little less like thunder.

“Didn’t look like that,” he says. Mikey knows that Pete is now aware he’s being an idiot. He can hear it in his voice, read it in his body language. But he also knows Pete well enough now to know that he’s not likely to give in that easily. He’s silent, thinking.

“Pete.” Pete says nothing, just makes a face. “Pete,” Mikey says again. “Don’t be jealous. Nothing to be jealous over. She wanted to sit with me so she wouldn’t look like a loser sitting on her own in front of her ex. I was bored too, you were actually gone for ages.” Pete looks like he’s thawing. “She was nice, but that’s it. No interest from me.” He tips Pete’s chin up so that Pete will look at him. “If you want me to go to these things with you, you can’t be a jealous asshole if I talk to people there.”

“Can’t help it,” Pete grits out. He’s still being stubborn, but he’s coming around. Pete’s jealousy isn’t exactly his most attractive quality, however in an odd way it’s almost endearing. Almost. Mikey smiles.

“Well, try. I’m not going to get seduced by a nice girl in a short dress just because she sits beside me.” Pete gives him a small, very weak smile. “I love you, idiot.”

Pete seems to finally concede and his smile grows, but only minutely.

Mikey catches him in a quick kiss to reassure him. “I’m yours, okay?” he says and Pete presses his forehead against Mikey’s.

“I’m always going to be jealous if I see someone fawning over you. Whether you like it or not, and whether I like it or not. It’s not that I don’t trust you, because I do. It’s not even that I didn’t trust that girl. I’m always afraid someone will steal you away. Like, I can’t believe you’re with an asshole like me anyway.” He looks at the floor and when he looks back up at Mikey, his face looks honest and open. “I’ll work on it.”

Mikey’s heart might stop working altogether. He feels like this on a regular basis. He generally thinks that Pete is way out of his league and could probably have almost anyone he wanted, and for some stupid reason he’s chosen to be with Mikey. Sometimes he thinks it’s all a mix up, and he expects Pete to come to his senses and leave him for someone with the same sort of lifestyle as him, that won’t complain if they have to go a public event or have their picture on the internet. But Mikey always talks himself out of vocalising any of it because he knows it’s silly. He knows Pete loves him. The fact that Pete obviously has the same little insecure voice is weirdly comforting.

“I’m yours,” Mikey whispers, and Pete kisses him again, but with a little more force this time.

Saying that he’s _Pete’s_ seems to trigger something, and this time Pete is more possessive when he pushes his lips against Mikey’s. He kisses him greedily, pulling Mikey tight against him with a hand to the back of his neck, really going for it, and his other hand fits to Mikey’s body, curling strong around his waist. He walks Mikey back two steps so that he can press him against the wall and kiss him harder. Mikey just surrenders to it, to the feeling of Pete against him, and he ignores the thump when his ass hits solid concrete behind him.

“Mine,” Pete murmurs. He’s on his tippy-toes, but he nuzzles down Mikey’s jaw and neck and then moves back up to kiss him again.

They’re still in the hallway, still in their jackets, and Pete pulls Mikey’s off his shoulders, not breaking the kiss and he’s maybe a little bit too rough, but Mikey likes it. Pete’s hands skim down his arms and he dumps the jacket on the floor before pulling his own off. Pete has looked amazing all day in dark jeans, a white shirt and that black leather jacket that he always looks really delicious in. He hasn’t showered since he performed earlier in the evening but he’s wearing a fresh shirt, so he smells like a mix of sweat and clean laundry and Mikey wants to inhale him. 

Pete pushes him flush against the wall and wedges his thigh between Mikey’s, just the way Mikey always likes. He kisses him like he can’t breathe, like he needs the air in Mikey’s lungs to survive, and his hands are all over Mikey like he can’t touch enough of him, quick and rough; in his hair, over his chest, grabbing at his ass and thighs.

“All yours.”

“Mine,” Pete mutters again, and then he drops down to his knees. He rucks Mikey’s shirt up halfway and grazes his teeth over the skin of his belly down to where Mikey’s underwear starts, then he moves to drag his teeth over Mikey’s hip bone. And it hurts. It hurts more when Pete bites down but Mikey doesn’t move and doesn’t stop him. Pete sucks on the jut of Mikey’s hip and he can feel the sting where he knows there’ll be a bruise later. Mikey hopes it’s a big one that lasts for days. 

Pete fumbles with Mikey’s fly and tugs Mikey’s jeans and boxers down his thighs. “Mikey,” Pete says, and his voice is quiet and awed. “All mine.” Mikey feels hot breath on his lower belly and then the press of Pete’s stubble against his public bone, then his thighs, and then Pete wraps his hand around Mikey’s dick. Mikey’s been halfway hard since they started kissing so it’s a relief for Pete to touch him. More so when Pete licks in a circle around the head of his dick and then sucks briefly. Mikey closes his eyes, wondering how his legs will ever make it until he comes.

Pete’s mouth is amazing and it’s something that Mikey will never get over. He sucks cock like there’s nothing else he’d rather be doing. He hums around Mikey when he sinks down to envelop his dick all the way to the base, and Mikey can feel the bump when the tip hits the back of Pete’s throat. He cups his hand around Mikey’s balls rolling them in his palm, presses the pad of his finger at the back of them. He teases a finger around Mikey’s hole and it makes Mikey’s hips jerk forward as he cries out. Pete circles the tender skin but doesn’t press in, just slides his hand back over Mikey’s balls again.

There’s never enough time to enjoy the feeling of Pete’s hot tongue doing magical things to him because whatever Pete does always undoes him far too quickly. He swirls his tongue around the head and over the slit repeatedly, sucks hard and Mikey sees stars.

Mikey comes, with Pete’s arm holding his hips against the wall, and Mikey is grateful for something behind him to hold him up. His legs feel liquid. Pete releases his softening dick from his mouth and presses his forehead against Mikey’s belly where there’s red scratches and bruises still visible. He just breathes there for a second, and then kisses over the marks he made so gently that it almost tickles. 

Mikey fits a finger under Pete’s chin to get him to stand up. Pete’s eyes are so dark. They’re lidded and he looks sinful, full of lust. Mikey kisses him, licks his tongue into Pete’s mouth, traces the tip of his tongue over his lips and then delves back in again.

He pulls Pete’s shirt up so that it’s up around his ribs and it’s stupidly tight enough that it stays there. He presses his fingers over Pete’s stomach and hips and then rubs all the way along where skin meets Pete’s belt. He runs his finger back and forth, teasing, and then finally goes to open his pants. Pete is breathless, gasping, and Mikey loves him like this; just on the edge between aroused and desperate.

Pete’s hard already, and gets harder when Mikey rubs him through his jeans first, then through his boxers, and finally it’s skin to skin. He wraps his hand around Pete’s dick and strokes, but there isn’t enough room to manoeuvre properly so he pulls his hand out. Pete whines in protest. “Please,” he gasps, as if Mikey’s going to leave him like that.

Mikey has to use both hands to push Pete’s jeans and underwear down enough so that his dick is bare and curving up towards his stomach. Mikey pulls Pete hard against him to kiss him again, and he squeezes his ass with both hands, then runs one around to Pete’s front to wrap around his dick again. “All yours, Pete,” he whispers and Pete moans. He kisses Pete messily, swallowing the deep sound of Pete’s next moan when he curls his fingers tighter and jerks over and over. “All yours.”

Pete clings to Mikey as he kisses him again, one hand tightly on his waist, the other gripping too tight in what he can reach of Mikey’s hair. “Want to come on you,” he rasps into Mikey’s mouth. Mikey tightens his grip and increases his strokes. He swipes his thumb over the slit, collecting precome and smearing it down the shaft as he jerks him.

“Do it. Mark me.”

Pete moans, and Mikey works his hand faster. Pete’s close to shaking apart. He’s mumbling incoherently and panting out short breaths, and then he moves his hand down to cover Mikey’s, so that they’re working him together, getting him closer and closer, until he’s trembling and his hips are bucking forwards.

Pete’s face is buried against Mikey’s shoulder when he comes, groaning, hand braced against the wall by Mikey’s head as they both jerk him, aiming his release at Mikey’s lower belly. Mikey’s legs want to give way, but he stands his ground while Pete breathes hard, coming down from his orgasm, taking most of Pete’s weight as well as his own when Pete leans in. 

Finally Pete moves, and it’s to stand with his back against the wall, right beside Mikey, his eyes still closed like he’s savouring how he feels.

Mikey slumps down against the wall, legs outstretched, his jeans still halfway down his thighs and he’s got Pete’s come on his belly. His bare ass is on the carpet so he knows he’s going to have to move soon, but he doesn’t want to. Pete slinks down the wall too and tucks himself in under Mikey’s arm, getting his head on Mikey’s shoulder. Mikey holds him tight. Pete’s jeans are around his knees and his shirt is up around his chest. They’re a mess. 

“We look ridiculous,” Mikey says. He can feel Pete smile against him. 

“You know I’m yours too, right?” Pete says after a few long minutes of silence, his voice quiet.  
“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> three chapters left...mild panicking in the background from me


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It says here that you’re _strictly into dick now_.” Mikey can’t even believe that anyone would say that in an article, but then again it’s a trashy gossip site.  
>  “Charming. It’s true though. Your dick.” Pete grins and waggles his eyebrows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks to [Immoral Crow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/pseuds/immoral_crow) for beta help and lots of patience. All inadequacies are mine :)

There are pictures of Mikey and Pete together even if they practically sprinted the through the press for the events that Pete has brought him to. They both knew there would be. What’s strange is the gossip that goes with them. 

They know that it’s like playing with fire, or like opening Pandora’s Box, but Pete suggests they have a look at the gossip sites to check what the reaction is, and somehow Mikey doesn’t talk him out of it. There’s not _too_ much. It’s not like Pete seeing a man is a massive scandal - “It’s not like I’m the fucking Pope!” - but there’s some interest in it. Pete’s temper flares briefly when he reads for the umpteenth time someone saying he’s gay, “I’m fucking bisexual! I still dig chicks, I just dig you more!”

Apart from opinions on Pete’s sexual preferences, there’s a lot of conflicting theories on the internet it seems. Mikey and Pete sit on either ends of the couch, facing each other and feet touching, laptops in hand.

“It says here that you’re _strictly into dick now_.” Mikey can’t even believe that anyone would say that in an article, but then again it’s a trashy gossip site.  
“Charming. It’s true though. Your dick.” Pete grins and waggles his eyebrows.  
“Did you see the one where it says you were seen looking very cosy with Rhianna?”  
“Yeah, I read that. That one is true, too. In the forty-five seconds where I pointed her in the direction of the bathroom, we really hit it off.  
“Smooth.” If Mikey was a jealous guy, or if he thought Pete was some sort of player, it might ring alarm bells, but it just seems silly. Mikey silently prays that there isn’t an eye witness stating that Pete’s new boyfriend was spotted flirting with a girl on the sofa, because that would be the icing on this whole ridiculous cake.  
“Oh, hey. This one says my marriage was a sham to cover up that I’ve been fucking Patrick for years. And you’re the new smokescreen to throw people off.”  
“Nice.” Mikey rolls his eyes. “Did you send the link to Patrick yet?”  
“Of course. This one says we make a cute couple.” Pete sounds surprised. “And there’s another one that says it too. We’re totally cute. We are the Sweet Little Dudes.”  
“Hurray. I didn’t know there were nice ones too,” Mikey says, feeling a warmth in his belly at hearing Pete’s name for their elite club of just two members. He wiggles his toes against Pete’s.  
“This one is complete trash. You want me to send you the link?”  
“You know, I don’t think I do,” Mikey says. He closes his laptop and sets it on the floor. He’s had enough of people’s unsolicited opinions for one day.  
Pete lets out an annoyed huff, obviously reading another article that is complete, conflicting rubbish. 

“It’s shit, Pete, and it’s not fair. We both know it,” Mikey says, trying to comfort Pete. He’s getting frustrated now too. “I don’t understand why people want to know about other people’s love lives. But I guess they do. You know these are all rubbish and most people will too. It’s bullshit.”

“Look, I know it’s the nature of this business, but it’s ridiculous sometimes. Once a magazine printed a report, supposedly from an insider, that I had fucking Chlamydia. I know it’s rubbish, but come _on_! For fuck sake.” 

Mikey laughs because it just all seems absurd. “Chlamydia?”  
“It wasn’t true,” Pete says like he needs to convince Mikey. Mikey laughs harder. “I can’t win.”  
“Do you want to win, Pete?”

Pete doesn’t answer for a minute. He’s still clicking in and out of websites. He hovers over something with the cursor, reading what’s below the same image of him and Mikey that’s been on three different gossip sites already. “Will we stop looking at these? We should stop.”

Mikey picks up the tone in Pete’s voice. He’s annoyed and trying to cover it. “Is it a mean one?”  
“Yeah.”  
“What does it say?”

“It’s just bullshit,” Pete says and closes the tab before Mikey can see. Mikey knows then that Pete’s protecting him, or that it must be something hurtful, either about them as a couple, or directly about Mikey.

“Pete?”  
“It’s fine, okay?” Pete closes the laptop and puts it aside. “We shouldn’t be looking at this stuff anyway.” He shifts so that he can lie down with his head on the sofa cushions and his bare feet in Mikey’s lap. 

“Did someone say you have Chlamydia again?” Mikey says, because it feels easier to make a joke out of it than think about the reality that there’s people being vicious for no reason. He appreciates that Pete is trying to spare his feelings.  
“Yes,” Pete grins. “And the plague too. And apparently I’m thinking of running for president.”  
“I heard a rumour you were going to cook us dinner,” Mikey offers, stroking his thumb over Pete’s ankle. Maybe it’s time they change the subject.  
“All lies,’ he smiles. “I’m calling for pizza.”

*

As much as Mikey can sort of understand people’s fascination with Pete and his personal life – Pete is in the public eye after all, and in the past he’s had some quiet public relationships – he can’t understand why people would be interested in _him._

Pete’s fans want to talk to him, as if he will give away something magical about Pete that they didn’t know before, or because Mikey is interesting just by association. It’s nice in a way, but there are also a few weird messages from some kids. Nothing threatening or terrible, but a bit over familiar and once or twice even a bit rude. Mikey has seen some of the anonymous hate that Pete gets on the internet and it’s nothing even close to that. But it’s a strange feeling that some keyboard cowboys feel the need to tell Mikey he’s too tall for Pete, or too thin and should eat a fucking sandwich already, or do something about his hair, or whatever. Mikey is trying to learn not to look at comments or take them seriously, and he needs to remind himself often that ignorance really is bliss.

Pete and Mikey are followed a few times by paparazzi. It’s usually just if they are in the middle of downtown LA, or leaving the studio, and once while they were out for dinner. Pete tells Mikey just to keep his head down and ignore them, pretend he doesn’t even see them, and that he doesn’t even need to say Hello unless he feels like it. It feels very strange for Mikey to think that someone’s _actual job_ is following them around. It gets even stranger when Mikey is followed when he’s on his own.

Pete is in various meetings for most of the week but they have a fancy charity dinner that Pete is bringing him to. Mikey lives the majority of his life in jeans and sneakers, and while that’s fine most of the time, it’s not exactly perfect attire for a nice dinner where people might actually be looking at him, so Pete sends him shopping. He needs to get something smart, and though he and Pete now often share clothes, he’s taller than Pete so he needs some decent pants at least. 

Pete tucks his credit card into Mikey’s wallet with a grin which feels a little strange. It feels frivolous to “just go buy whatever you like,” especially when Pete lists off a string of stores to try, all in the expensive areas of LA, but Mikey concedes. 

The first store he goes to, he finds some awesome vintage shirts, and while they’re not suitable for a charity dinner where he’s supposed to look respectable, he buys them anyway because they’re too nice to leave behind.

When he’s leaving the store he sees a guy with a camera about thirty feet away but doesn’t really think much of it. It’s fucking LA, there’s always people with cameras whether they’re tourists or paparazzi or location scouts or whatever. 

Mikey has a browse in another store further down the street but leaves with nothing this time. On his way to get a coffee, he sees the same guy with the camera. Again, Mikey doesn’t think too much of it, no cause for alarm. 

When he leaves Starbucks, creamy Frappuccino in hand, the same guy is waiting outside and this time he seems to be taking pictures. Of Mikey. 

It feels far too strange. Why the fuck would anyone want pictures of him shopping?

He ducks into the next store and spends a long time rummaging through rails of awesome things. He sees a few things that might be okay to wear but he’s distracted and not really in the mood for shopping any more. He sends a quick text to Pete to tell him but he’s cautious with how he says it in case he’s being silly at that guy wasn’t taking pictures of him at all. He also doesn’t want to alarm Pete.

_think there’s a paparazzi guy following me. But maybe there’s someone actually interesting in the same stores I’m in_

Pete’s reply comes quickly. _buy awesome sunglasses 2 hide behind and tel hm 2 fuck hmself if he comes 2 close_

Mikey sighs. There’s not much more he can do and he feels foolish for texting Pete to tell him, like Pete would have a magic formula to make the photographer go away. He buys sunglasses, awesome ones as advised by Pete, but then ends his shopping trip early, vaguely annoyed but not fully sure why.

*

The process of recording an album, Mikey is learning, is very long and complicated. He’d thought it would be like in the movies; quick and fun, and maybe with a montage of laughing and drinking, and with a classic rock song played over it. Not so.

There’s a huge amount of work to be done before the band even make it _near_ the studio. 

Pete and Patrick do the lion’s share of the writing and composing between them, though Joe and Andy have massive input too, and with four opinions all needing to be heard it can get heated. They have it down to a fine art now though, as proven by their multiple gold and platinum discs. It doesn’t mean it’s easy, though. 

Pete writes lyrics all the time. Usually it’s just fragments, or single lines and phrases that don’t go together yet, but they probably will when pieced together over one of Patrick’s melodies. Pete writes whenever the words come to him, whether that’s at a convenient time or not. He has pulled over while he’s driving to write things down before he forgets them, and Mikey constantly finds bits of balled up and inked paper in jacket pockets. Once Pete even took a time out during a heavy make out session to type two lines into his phone while Mikey looked on in wonder.

The actual writing process, the turning bits of paper and half lines into chart topping, million-selling tracks is complicated, and things can get pretty stressful, and while Pete and Patrick are as close as two friends can be, Pete has told Mikey about it coming to actual punches in the past. 

Pete says it’s not a row, more a _disagreement_ that he has with Patrick, but either way, Pete comes home from a day’s writing and he’s like a demon, furious with the world and everything in it. 

“Anything I can do?” Mikey asks from the safety of the doorway.  
Pete looks up with his phone and he glares at Mikey for a minute and then his face softens a little. “No.”  
“You sure? You want anything?”

Pete is silent again. He doesn’t look up from his phone this time but he pats the sofa cushion beside him instead; it’s an invitation. When Mikey sits down beside him, Pete waits a beat and then melts against him, head on Mikey’s shoulder. “No,” he says. “Just a hard day.”

Eventually Pete relaxes fully and they order pizza, eating it sprawled on the sofa. It feels like one of their old dates, when Pete would show up in Jersey for a sixteen hour visit and they would cling to each other, knowing that they wouldn’t see each other again for a week, or maybe more. With Pete beginning to work more and more, it’s not far off. They cement it as an imprint of their old dates by fucking on the couch with Master Chef on in the background.

“So I told Patrick I’m going to blow off writing tomorrow,” Pete says afterwards, when they’ve cleaned up and crawled into bed, snuggling down under the blankets. 

Mikey raises his eyebrows. “That a good idea?” Skipping writing after having a blowout sounds like a bad plan to Mikey, but the dynamic between Pete and Patrick is a delicate balance that Mikey may never understand.  
“Yeah, we worked it out by text. Kind of. You wanna have a date day tomorrow?”

Pete’s been working a lot and they get to grab food or coffee here and there, but a whole day together has been impossible for the last two weeks. So yes, of course Mikey wants an entire day of Pete to himself.

“I guess I can fit it in to my schedule of doing nothing. Let me take you out for breakfast?”  
“Yeah. And then back here to hang out? Just you and me.” That sounds perfect to Mikey.  
“We can do that. Anything in particular you want to do?”  
“No,” Pete says. “Just a quiet day together.”

It’s not quite the quiet day that Mikey was planning but he’s not complaining. They grab breakfast at a nearby eatery and by mid-morning they’re back home and relaxing out on the deck in the yard.

“No one can see us out here.” Pete says.  
“Is that why you have the tiniest shorts on? Seriously, are they even adult shorts?” It’s scorching outside. Mikey is reading and Pete is doing whatever he usually does when he has his phone practically glued to his hand. He’s already shared two pictures of himself sunbathing, and one of Mikey reading, with the entire internet. Their sun loungers are right beside each other and they’ve been holding hands for the past twenty minutes, but Pete is restless even though doing nothing in the sun was his idea.

“They totally are. And I’ll wear shorts as small as I like, because it’s my yard. But also I like to look good for you, baby,” Pete leers. 

Mikey is wearing a tank top and shorts of an actual normal length which is so very conservative compared to Pete, but then Pete’s default state is barely dressed anyway, and most of the time they’re at home he’s allergic to shirts. Though Mikey considers, as he looks up and down the length of Pete’s body through the dark of his sunglasses, there’s worse things to complain about than Pete wearing minimal clothing. He looks really good in his teeny tiny shorts, dark skin shining in the sun and tattoos glistening with sun lotion.

“But what I meant,” Pete says a few minutes later, “Was that no one can see in, so feel free to take off more clothes. The only reason I have my shorts on is because you’ll tell me off if I sunbathe nude.” Mikey would definitely tell him off for that. No one needs a sunburnt ballsack.

“Nah I’m good,” Mikey says.  
“Not even your shirt?”  
Like Mikey would be getting the rest of his clothes off? “I’m fine as I am. Don’t want to get sunburnt. I have delicate New Jersey skin.”  
“I’ll do your back for you,” Pete sing-songs and holds up a bottle of sun lotion to prove it.  
“Fine.” Sometimes it’s just easier to give in, and maybe Mikey could do with absorbing some extra vitamin D anyway.

Pete practically bounds off his sun lounger and has his hands on Mikey’s waist to pull his shirt up for him before Mikey can blink. Mikey lies on his sun lounger, stomach first, and Pete climbs over him, straddling his ass. Mikey puts his head on his folded arms and relaxes, feeling the heat of the sun on his skin. He hears the click of the lid and then a cold blob of lotion on each shoulder, first one and then the other.

Pete is good with his hands, he always is. He rubs with firm pressure over Mikey’s shoulders, up his neck to his hairline, and then down his spine. When all of the skin is covered, Pete lies on top of him like a human blanket and kisses the back of Mikey’s neck all along the fine hairs at the nape. It’s just little fluttery kisses, but Pete takes his time and it makes all of those hairs stand on end.

“You have a boner?” Mikey asks, though he knows the answer, he can feel Pete’s dick pressing into his lower back.  
“Yeah. I wanna make out with you,” Pete says, and it only sounds a little like pleading.  
“Yeah okay, but do my front first,” Mikey says, looking over his shoulder, and meaning _put sun lotion on him._ Pete smirks at him and wiggles his eyebrows.

Pete removes himself from Mikey’s back and hauls himself off the lounger so that Mikey can turn himself. As he’s settling back against Mikey, Pete squirts sun lotion into his hand and smooths it over Mikey’s chest starting at his collarbones. He works his way down, being careful not to miss any spots that could result in blotchy sunburn. By the time Pete has rubbed the lotion into Mikey’s chest, nipples (“they’re important not to miss”), and over his flat stomach, Pete is leaning in for a kiss, or several kisses really, and he wraps his arms around Mikey like a fucking octopus.

Mikey sinks one hand into Pete’s hair, running his fingers through it and feeling the waxy texture of Pete’s product on his skin. The other hand he uses to cup Pete’s jaw, and then he slides it down Pete’s body slowly; chin, neck, chest, abs, and stops just at the waistband to his stupid little shorts. Pete tilts his head, pushes his tongue deeper into Mikey’s mouth and holds on tight. Mikey thinks this probably isn’t going to end in just making out now.

Mikey leans back onto the sun lounger and Pete lies half on the lounger and half on him. It’s molten-slow kisses, with lips and tongue working so easily against each other, and it feels so lazy and indulgent to be like this with Pete in the baking heat. Mikey just needs a cold, fruity drink with a little umbrella and it would be some sort of daydream come true.

Pete smells like the chemical coconut-vanilla of sun lotion, mixed with hazelnut creamer from their earlier coffees. In short, he smells delicious and Mikey’s plan is to eat him up. He licks his tongue around Pete’s mouth and over his lips. He slides his palm up Pete’s thigh feeling the coarse hair as well as his lotion slicked skin under his fingers. Pete’s stupid, tiny shorts are far too hot, and Mikey palms his ass though them, giving it a good squeeze. Pete hums and smiles against the kiss and makes a grab at Mikey’s ass too. 

Mikey ignores the little voice in his head, the one that’s protesting and telling him _‘you’re outside,’_ and sticks his hand down the front of Pete’s really tiny shorts, and huh, he’s not wearing underwear. Of course. Pete makes a startled little squeak, and Mikey thinks he probably wasn’t expecting it any more than Mikey was planning on doing it, but he still curls his hand around Pete’s dick and gives him a firm stroke. Pete’s startled sounds turns into a moan, and then another, and yeah, they’re doing this in the back yard. How weird is that?

Mikey pulls in tight strokes and Pete leans in close against him, their mouths sealed together. Pete fucks his tongue into Mikey’s mouth in time with Mikey’s hand. He runs his palms over Mikey’s body, and despite how warm it is outside, Pete’s mouth and fingers feel searing hot against his skin. 

Pete pulls back to breathe. He runs his tongue over his lower lip and closes his eyes as Mikey strokes him again, and then Pete’s hand is over his, though this time Pete’s not joining in. He’s stopping Mikey, which is odd. 

“Wait,” Pete says.  
“Wait?”  
“Yeah. Just, let me. With you. We should both-” Mikey’s brow creases, but it’s just for a second. Before he knows it, Pete is wriggling out of his stupid, tiny shorts. 

Pete pulls at the fly of Mikey’s shorts, and Mikey’s not sure if he should stop this or not. Mikey’s not an exhibitionist, not at all. He loved performing on stage, but other than that he’s quite happy to take the back seat. Having sex outside feels a lot like putting on a show, even if the yard has high walls and the deck is even more enclosed. There are no properties right next door to Pete’s house that might get an accidental eyeful, but he’s still cautious. 

His dick is more interested than he’d thought it would be, though, and a thrill ran through him when Pete began this, so maybe he can take a leaf out of Pete’s book for just one afternoon and leave himself on display – even if it’s in the safety of a walled space.

“You swear no one can see us out here?” Mikey asks.  
Pete makes a little salute. “Scout’s honour.”  
“You’re so not a boy scout.” But Mikey just thinks _fuck it_ and nods. “If my naked ass scares the neighbours or makes it into the tabloids there will be trouble. Huge trouble. Okay?”  
“Deal.”

Regardless of Pete swearing no one can see them, Mikey still gets another unexpected thrill when Pete pulls down his shorts; the thought of being watched is apparently a kink he didn’t know he had. Mikey expects Pete to just leave them around his thighs, but he pulls them all the way off and his boxer briefs too. Then they’re both butt naked in the back yard, which feels like something he probably shouldn’t be doing, and yet he’s pulling Pete back down for a kiss instead. 

It’s skin on skin all the way down, with just the slide of sweat and melting sun lotion between them, Mikey’s cock pressing against Pete’s abdomen.

Pete kisses Mikey deep and so slowly, like he has all the time in the world, like they’re not out on the fucking deck where there could be goddamn paparazzi helicopters flying overhead, or something equally ridiculous. 

Pete moves himself so that their dicks are lined up together, licking Mikey’s lips. He braces himself on one elbow and wraps the other hand around both his and Mikey’s dicks, and his breathing stutters. The feeling of Pete’s hot, hard cock flush against Mikey’s sets off fireworks in his body and he grunts roughly into Pete’s mouth. Pete strokes slowly at first, but even that’s enough to make Mikey moan. He can feel the pulse of the blood in Pete’s dick, the throb of arousal. 

Pete shifts his body and swings his leg over Mikey’s so that he’s straddling him. It gives Pete much more leverage and he regrips holding both dicks tighter. Pete sits up tall and strokes slowly again, then leans forward to kiss Mikey again and speeds his up hand. Mikey knows that Pete loves it like this, and the first time they did it, he made Mikey laugh by saying over and over how two dicks are better than one. Any residue of sun lotion left on Pete’s hand acts like lube as his fists over the silky skin. Pete kisses Mikey, hard and deep, and he sighs contentedly into Mikey’s mouth. 

Mikey trails his hands over Pete’s arms and chest feeling a layer of sweat on his skin. When Pete sits back up slightly, bracing himself over Mikey again and his hand moving furiously, Mikey’s breath stutters and he whimpers at how beautiful Pete looks. Pete’s face is contorted into bliss, brow scrunched and mouth slack, and Mikey rubs his thumb over Pete’s bottom lip. 

He can feel Pete getting closer, feel every twitch and jolt of Pete’s dick tight against his. Pete keens, swears, moans, whimpers. It’s like a symphony of gorgeous pornographic sounds to Mikey. He’s sure that someone will hear them and it all just adds to how hot his afternoon has become. 

Mikey’s close when Pete drops his forehead to Mikey’s shoulder and comes thick and hot onto Mikey’s belly, panting short breaths. It’s hot as hell but it’s not quite enough to send Mikey over the edge. He strokes himself slowly as he watches Pete come down, the sheen of sweat all over Pete making him so beautiful.

“Fuck. Outside fucking is awesome.” Pete says, and his voice is fucked, so low and rough from orgasm.  
“Yeah?” Mikey manages to say, though it’s not really a question. From the speed at which Pete came undone and how amazing it’s been so far, he knows it’s good.

Pete kisses him, and it’s nowhere near enough for what Mikey needs, but then Pete shoots Mikey a look full of promises and scoots down his body. He kisses a path down Mikey’s neck, hitting all the hotspots, the thin skin behind Mikey’s ear, and then makes his way down Mikey’s torso. Mikey lets his legs fall open as Pete kneels at the foot of the sun lounger and runs warm hands over Mikey’s thighs. Mikey leans his head back, and sinks his hands back into Pete’s hair to hold on.

He feels Pete’s tongue, hot and perfect, not on his dick where he was expecting it, but lower and _oh god._ The first touch against the tender flesh of Mikey’s ass makes him jolt. Pete pushes his tongue forward gently at first, opening him, slicking him. Pete eases Mikey’s cheeks apart with his fingers, and they feel soft and warm and so goddamn wicked that Mikey moans and gasps and pulls on Pete’s hair. Pete switches up the tempo, and licks in quick little flicks setting every nerve ending in the area on fire. Mikey’s breath trips in his chest and he catches his lip between his teeth. 

Pete grabs hold of Mikey’s hips to get closer, and his tongue thrusts deeper inside. It feels infinitely dirtier to be outside in the open with Pete licking him out. Pete licks again and again, then moves his mouth up lap at the back of Mikey’s balls, then bites on Mikey’s ass cheek. Just as Mikey is gasping from the sensation, Pete presses his tongue back against Mikey’s hole.

All that Mikey can do is pant out incoherent swear words, and even that’s a challenge. Little did he know his afternoon would end up so fucking _perfect_.

Mikey hears a wet noise and he’s not entirely surprised when he feels Pete’s saliva-slicked finger pressing at his hole instead of his tongue. Pete slips it in, and even though he’s gentle, there’s still a slight burn. He presses lightly at Mikey’s prostate and takes Mikey’s dick into his mouth at the same time, all the way down to the base, tight and deep. How is Mikey supposed to survive such a double hitter like that? He groans and tries his best to keep his hips in place, but it’s useless and he ends up half-fucking Pete’s mouth in time with Pete’s hands.

Pete slides his finger out and pushes two back in, so slowly, _far_ too fucking slowly, crooks them against _that spot_ and begins thrusting again, the pads of his fingers hitting against his prostate over and over. Mikey tries to hold out, but it’s too much, so he just closes his eyes and lets it wash over him. It’s the heat of the sun, the outside-nakedness, the fact that Pete knows how to push every single one of Mikey’s buttons _at the same time_ and he comes in Pete’s mouth.

“Fuck. That was so fucking hot.” Pete sits back up. He wipes a drip of come from his chin and looks debauched and wrecked.  
“Yeah it was,” Mikey says, because it totally, totally was, and he’d never have thought just how hot.  
“We gotta do that more often.”  
“Maybe. But I’m certain that there’s fucking photographers with long lenses that’ll see-“  
“My tongue in your ass?”  
Mikey laughs. “Yeah, next time it can _my_ tongue in _your_ ass, but maybe we should be careful.”

“Okay,” Pete says after a minute of what looks like careful consideration. He kisses Mikey slowly, and lies down on the lounger, half on top of him, and still naked. “Next time we fuck outside it can be at night so no one can see us.” Mikey doesn’t respond to that, still not sure if half of thrill is from the thought of getting caught. He pokes his finger against his belly which is covered in come. 

“We should clean up,” Mikey suggests.  
“Dip in the pool?” 

Mikey can’t argue that Pete has good ideas sometimes.

The rest of their day together goes by far too quickly for Mikey’s liking, and before he knows it they’re curling around each other to sleep for the night.

Pete comes home from the writing session the next day in much better humour, though he looks exhausted.

“You sorted out your thing with Patrick?”  
“Yeah.”  
“So it’s okay?”  
“Yeah. No punching this time.” Pete wraps his arms around Mikey’s waist and hugs him tight. “Thanks,” Pete says, and it seems to be an all-encompassing thanks, not just for asking how his day went. Mikey squeezes back, so glad that it wasn’t a monumental row. 

When a further writing session blows up again into another _disagreement,_ Pete books himself an impromptu DJ set in a friend’s club in Las Vegas and he and Mikey head off for the night. It’s a perfect distraction for Pete, and it seems to do him good to get out of LA for twenty-four hours. The club even comps Pete a hotel suite in the attaching hotel, and he and Mikey take advantage of it, deciding to have an all-out war over who can make who come the loudest.

Mikey wins, but he was always going to; Pete is loud as all hell when he wants to be.

When Pete returns to writing sessions afterwards, it’s back to normal; productive and without incident, and he comes home with a smile on his face and a thank you on his lips. 

“You’re good at distracting me,” he says, pressing his face into the curve of Mikey’s neck. “I know I’m not always the easiest to live with. I love that you put up with me.”  
“That’s what you do when you love someone, right? You put up with me too, you know. We’re a team.”  
“We are. It’ll be easier when the album is done.” Mikey holds on the hope that it will be, though he knows things then get crazy busy in a different way. “Hey, you should come with me tomorrow. It might be boring for you, but it might be fun too.”  
“Yeah. I can do that.” It sounds like fun to Mikey. He likes when Pete includes him in his work things that won’t involve photographers.  
“Cool,” he smiles. “I’ll name it ‘Bring Your Mikey to Work Day’.”  
Mikey raises an eyebrow. “Do the guys have to bring a Mikey too? Will there be lots of us?”  
Pete shrugs and holds Mikey tight. “Fucked if I care. I’m just bringing my Mikey.” Then he narrows his eyes dramatically. “And I’m not sharing.”

The session is great fun, more of a jam of what they’ve recently written than writing anything brand new. Pete plays up to Mikey, using him as his audience. He thrusts his hips suggestively against his bass, and licks the fret board until Patrick throws a pick at him. Mikey sits in the corner giggling, but trying not to encourage Pete into any further antics.

While Pete is over hanging out of Andy, laughing while they wind up Joe together, Mikey ends up talking with Patrick. And it’s nice; Patrick seems to be the other most important person in Pete’s life and Mikey rarely gets to spend any time with him.

“Whatever you guys got up to on your days off seems to have put Pete in a better mood. Writing yesterday was a breeze.”  
Mikey blushes a ridiculous shade of red involuntarily at the thoughts of some of the things he and Pete have been doing to keep Pete distracted. He looks at the floor, but just says, “Glad I could help. He said you guys had some sort of argument?”  
“Yeah. We’re good at arguing over writing.”  
“He didn’t say what it was about.” Mikey’s doesn’t want to pry. He feels like that stuff should be kept between Patrick and Pete if that’s what they want.

“It wasn’t even over a big thing. It never is. It was just the progression of a song and we wanted it different ways. He was totally right, by the way. It sounds much better his way.” Patrick pauses and looks a little uncomfortable. ”It can get pretty high pressured when everyone is exhausted and we’ve been playing the same thirty seconds of a song over and over for six hours. Pete and I, when we argue over writing, it tends to go nuclear. We both react differently. Pete tends to explode briefly and then blame everything on himself.” Patrick shrugs. “I just explode.” 

Mikey watches Patrick’s face and sees sincerity. He thinks about how he reacts to confrontation and he knows he’s not a million miles off how Pete seems to deal with it. Mikey hates confrontation in most forms and avoids it where he can in favour of a quiet life. But when he’s had arguments in the past they’ve ended with him becoming a ball of anxiety. “I’m probably similar to Pete. Big explosion and then quiet. Me and Gee have had a few blow-outs but they resolve pretty quickly. I guess everyone does it differently.”

“Yeah. Just, if Pete explodes and then goes into himself, be careful of him. For him it’s an old feeling, and he self-destructs a little. He usually needs a kick in the behind and some TLC to get him back on course, but he always gets back.” Patrick looks sincere, like he _knows_ this from experience, and Mikey wouldn’t doubt for a second that that’s true.

“Good to know. You guys have been through the mill together, huh?” Mikey’s only a little jealous of Pete’s long standing history. He’s hoping he gets to have a long history with Pete himself, as long as he’s allowed to have.

“Yeah, when you share a van with someone for up to eighteen hours a day, you get to know them pretty well. It’s a bus instead of a van these days, but it’s the same. Pete is...important to us.” Mikey feels like he’s getting a much lighter version of when Gerard told Pete not to fuck with Mikey, but he’s okay with that. He likes that Patrick cares so much about Pete, and he has no intentions of fucking up what he and Pete have together.

At the end of the session, Pete hands his bass over to Mikey to jam for a bit. Mikey has fooled around with playing Fall Out Boy stuff a little by himself, but he hasn’t played anything at all in weeks so he’s rusty (and any time that he and Pete try to play together it ends with them making out, Pete murmuring something about Mikey’s fingers being distracting). But Mikey tunes out Pete’s giddy squeals as he starts into the first of two tracks that Pete picked for him, rocking his body to the beat and getting into them. 

When he eventually looks up at Pete, Pete is grinning from ear to ear and looking at him with such love in his eyes, fingers playing along with Mikey on an invisible fret board on the arm of the chair. It feels nice to let loose like this, and even more so for Pete to make Mikey feel included.

Jamming makes Mikey miss playing with his friends and miss Jersey quite a lot, but he’s happy that being here with Pete feels enough like home to make up for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters left... deep breaths, deep breaths


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikey knows that Pete is under pressure at the moment and while Pete might say that all is well, he’s not dealing too well with the extra stresses. The fact that he’s not sleeping a lot, and when he is, it’s fitful and broken, isn’t helping either. Tiredness has a way of making everything seem worse than it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [Immoral Crow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/pseuds/immoral_crow) for so much help bby <3 All inadequacies are mine :)

It’s a tough week for Mikey. 

Pete is deep into the recording process which means he’s keeping very long hours in the studio. They get to spend the mornings together, either eating breakfast in their pyjamas in the kitchen or sometimes going to a little place nearby for fresh made pastries, but there isn’t a huge amount of time for that. Pete leaves for the studio around midday, and most nights he’s not home until after midnight, sometimes very long after midnight. 

Mikey usually waits up for him, it’s not like he has to be up early for work or anything. When Pete comes home he’s usually in an okay mood, but he’s tired and he hasn’t been sleeping all that well. It gets worse as the days go by. 

Pete sometimes brings home take out, and if he does they eat together, but if it’s very late Pete just crawls into bed even if he’s not going to sleep, and Mikey follows him. Sometimes it’s so late that Mikey can’t stay awake any longer and curls up under the covers without Pete. Mikey hates those nights.

Mikey’s a little bored with Pete gone all day, almost every day. It’s okay doing things in LA on his own sometimes, but there’s only so much he can take of hitting up tourist traps by himself and sitting in coffee shops. 

He misses Gerard a lot. They’ve always been such close siblings and Mikey took it for granted that they would always be so intricately woven into each other’s lives. They still talk or text on a daily basis but it’s a lot harder than he thought it would be being away from home. He misses Frank and Ray too, really misses them, though Frank never misses an opportunity to rib him over anything he sees in the press about him or Pete. 

(And for someone who never really wanted a cat, Mikey really misses Venom, too. If he ends up moving to LA permanently he wants her here with them.)

Mikey still doesn’t really know many people in LA but he’s beginning to meet people through Pete. He’s not ashamed to say he got a little starstruck when Pete introduced him to _Gabe, the guy from Midtown_ whose shows Mikey actually attended years previously in Jersey. It turns out that Gabe is pretty cool, and he and Mikey get on like a house on fire, so at least he has _one_ friend in LA now. When Gabe is around and Pete is working, they grab lunch or hang out together, and it’s nice, but it’s not even close to having Ray or Frank around.

Mikey has been helping Gerard out quite a bit with anything he can do for the store via email and internet, and even chasing suppliers over the phone. It’s not just to ease his conscience now, but because he misses it quite a bit. He misses it enough that he’s thought into the future and thinks that if he and Pete were to make a life for themselves in LA, and Mikey moves here permanently, then he would like to open a second comic book shop out here. He’s done a little bit of research into it and it seems like it could be a viable idea. Pete even offered to invest in it, but that’s a while down the road yet, so for the moment he does invoices and correspondence for Gerard. 

So far it’s been okay being so far from home because he’s had lots of time with Pete, but with Pete cloistered in the studio, it’s harder.

Mikey is followed again by a paparazzo, this time while out looking for comic books. The guy tails Mikey for a little while and Mikey tries to forget about it, ignore him, and just do like Pete advised. He puts on his awesome sunglasses and goes about his business, but after four blocks of being followed, Mikey gets annoyed and turns around to flip him off. He knows he shouldn’t, but he doesn’t care.

Pete tells him it’s fine, that no gossip rag or website will usually want pictures with those sort of gestures in them, but if a photographer wants a picture and you flip them off, they often follow you more, sometimes just to get a reaction again. 

Mikey still can’t understand why anyone wants a picture of him anyway.

Add to that, the fact that his increased boredom has meant that he’s found himself doing stupid things like looking at the replies people leave him if he tweets Pete, or looking at what people are saying about them together, and he’s feeling pretty shitty.

*

Pete’s cranky when he wakes, tired and uncomfortable from not sleeping well. He heads out to the gym and Mikey goes with him for a swim, which probably actually isn’t necessary considering they _have_ a pool, but he just wants to spend part of the morning with Pete. 

Pete says he has a good gym session, working a decent amount of frustration out by over-exerting himself on the treadmill and with a barbell.

They grab a coffee afterwards and Pete is in a pretty decent mood, endorphin high from his workout. Mikey’s glad his mood has lifted, even if there’s a possibility it’s temporary. The hours in the studio have been extra-long this week as the band try and fail to record one specific song and get it to sound right, so today is likely to leave Pete even more exhausted.

“Will you be late?”  
“Probably.”  
“Let me know if you want me to cook you something, or even drop something over to the studio.”  
“I will but I have no appetite lately.” Mikey knows this, and he also knows it’s probably down to stress. He looks at Pete’s heavily sugared, creamy Starbucks and thinks at least he’s at least consuming something.  
“Do your best.”  
Pete gives him a little smile and seems to know that Mikey is just looking out for him. “I will.” He glances at his wrist watch and frowns. “Better go.”  
“Later rockstar. Go save the world.”

Even though they hardly ever kiss in public, Pete pulls Mikey by the shirt and gives him a firm kiss goodbye that leaves him breathless.

Mikey’s about to head home when his phone buzzes. It’s a text from Gabe asking if he’s around for a coffee. Mikey replies, and of course he’s around, it’s not like he has anything to _do_ really. Gabe is not too far away so they pick a little indie coffee shop to meet in. It’s the opposite of the Starbucks that Mikey has just been sitting in with Pete; full of old patchwork covered chairs and hand-printed art.

“How’s LA been treating you?” Gabe asks. “Different from New Jersey, isn’t it?”  
Mikey laughs. “Yeah, it’s pretty different. Still getting used to it, but it’s cool. I like it here.  
“And you and Pete are good? It’s hard moving in with someone.” 

Gabe is usually pretty light-hearted with Mikey, they don’t know each other well enough yet to get into deep, personal stuff. Mikey’s eyes dart away from Gabe’s. He doesn’t want to start venting that it’s tough at the moment, not with Gabe. Gabe and Pete are close and they have been for years, so Mikey would never want to offload his troubles – his Pete troubles – onto Gabe. That feels unfair. Gabe picks up Mikey’s sudden shift in body language, though. 

“It’s not going okay?”  
“It’s okay. But it’s hard too sometimes. The album is taking its toll on him,” Mikey says, and then adds honestly, “And on me a little, too.”  
“Yeah Pete’s tough to live with sometimes. We lived together for about a month when his divorce came through. I kept an eye on him. Pete’s a puppy dog, but he takes things hard. Stress is not his friend.”  
“Yeah I get that. I’m worried about him too sometimes.”  
“Yeah, I know that feeling. But he’s in a good place overall. He’s told me how happy you make him. Being a band-wife is hard, or so my wife tells me. And it seems to be harder with Pete because he’s good at closing himself off. Give it time until the album is done and you guys will be back to being as sickening as you ever were.”

Mikey gives Gabe a tight smile and hopes he’s right. For the rest of their coffee date neither of them mention anything else on the subject and Mikey’s glad. Pete is not in the studio the next day which is relief. Mikey’s really looking forward to it; a day together is much needed and Mikey can’t wait to stay in bed, fuck lazily, and enjoy each other’s company. 

He texts Pete in the evening and asks if Pete wants him to cook and when he’ll be home. Pete’s text simply reads _No. Home late._ Not for the first time since he and Pete started dating, Mikey wishes he could decipher Pete’s mood through text, though he assumes the worst.

Pete comes home just after midnight and he’s in a foul humour. He doesn’t bring take out, and mumbles greetings to Mikey with a half-hearted kiss on the cheek before heading to the kitchen. Mikey follows him out and perches on a high stool, and watches as Pete potters around, distractedly opening and closing cupboards and not really looking for anything. He looks into the fridge for a long time and then the freezer like he’s looking for something but he doesn’t know what.

“Will I make you something?” Mikey offers. He knows there’s of tons of food and he can easily whip something up if Pete wants and he’d feel better knowing that Pete is eating something with some sort of nutritional value in it. He needs it.  
“No. Not really hungry.” Pete’s voice is tense and he looks exhausted.  
“Is everything okay? Things go alright today?”  
“Not really. But it’s fine. Let’s just go to bed.” Pete wanders off out of the kitchen without another word and Mikey stares after him. 

He knows that Pete is under pressure at the moment and while Pete might say that all is well, he’s not dealing too well with the extra stresses. The fact that he’s not sleeping a lot, and when he is, it’s fitful and broken, isn’t helping either. Tiredness has a way of making everything seem worse than it is. 

Mikey tries not to take Pete’s bad mood personally, he really does, but he’s finding it hard spending so much time by himself waiting for Pete to come home, only to be greeted by a grumpy, silent, and frustrated person where his Pete used to be.

Pete is already under the covers when Mikey gets to the bedroom and he strips down to his boxers and joins him. Pete curls around him like he always does, and clings on tightly like Mikey is his security blanket.

“Want to talk about it?” Mikey asks, and pets Pete’s hair, hoping it’s soothing. He knows the answer will probably be no, but he needs to put it out there anyway.

Pete says nothing but Mikey feels him shake his head minutely against his chest. Eventually he just says, “It’s just recording stuff. And record company stuff. There’s a lot.” He burrows his head into the crook of Mikey’s neck. “I’m tired.”

Mikey falls asleep hoping that Pete will be in a better mood tomorrow, but he’s woken by Pete getting up during the night, so he’s not entirely surprised when Pete looks like hell the next morning. He’s got dark circles under his eyes and his jaw is unshaven. He’s wearing the same tank top and shorts he had on yesterday. 

“Hey. Did you get any sleep?”  
Pete blinks at him like he’s miles away and finally answers, “A bit. But not much.”  
“Want me to make you breakfast?” Mikey offers.  
“Sure. Just coffee?”  
“If I make you pancakes will you eat them?”  
“Okay,” Pete says but he doesn’t sound too convincing.

Mikey makes them anyway and Pete sits on one of the stools in the kitchen while Mikey mixes batter and then cooks them up. Mikey tries to make conversation, but mostly it’s like having a conversation with himself. Pete’s answers are monosyllabic but sometimes he seems like he’s trying, and Mikey even gets a smile out of him when he makes lopsided heart-shaped pancakes. Pete eats a bit, not as much as Mikey would like, but he eats some and then pushes the rest around the plate. Mikey whizzes up a smoothie too and Pete drinks at least half of his glass so there’s that, too.

“Want to do stuff today? Maybe go out for dinner tonight or something? Or go back to bed?”  
“I have a meeting,” Pete says like Mikey should know about it, even though that’s the first time Pete has mentioned it.  
“Oh.” Mikey’s chest feels hollow. He feels silly and disappointed for thinking he would have Pete all to himself today. “I thought you were free today.”  
“It’s just for an hour. There’s no other day I can fit it in.”  
“Maybe we can do something before or after?”  
“Let’s see how the meeting goes.” It’s not a no, but it’s nowhere near as much of a yes as Mikey wants. He envisages Pete coming back just as pissed off after it, if not worse.

_I miss you. I’m worried about you. I’m sad seeing you so stressed and I’m lonely on my own_ is what Mikey should say, and he knows it. What he actually says is, “You can’t fit me in at all? I’m not asking for much, Pete,” and he doesn’t say it, he snaps it.

“What?” Pete looks up. His face is blank, but Mikey knows he’s said the wrong thing. Any tiny chance that Pete’s mood was lifting is draining away quickly.  
“You’ve been working all week. And last week. We’ve barely seen each other.”  
“Yeah, I’ve been busy. Don’t take it personally,” Pete says and scrapes his stool across the tiles as he pushes it back to get up. He clears his plate into the garbage and then clatters it into the sink too forcefully. He leaves the kitchen, heads into the living room and back to where Mikey had found him lying earlier. Mikey follows him.

“I’m not taking it personally, Pete but you’re not making this easy.”  
“What do you want me to do?” Pete asks. “Will I just cancel the meeting?”  
“No, Pete-“  
“Sure, let me just clear my schedule.” Pete’s sarcasm is more than visible as he picks up his phone and studies it. Mikey knows that Pete is being stubborn and childish now and the best thing that he could do would be to leave the room and cool off, but he can’t manage to do it.  
“Pete-“ Mikey’s tone is quieter this time but now Pete’s on a roll.  
“No. That’s fine. I’ll tell the guys we don’t need to record a new album. I’ll tell the record company I don’t need to meet them to talk numbers. Mikey needs to go out to lunch.”

Mikey sighs and takes a calming breath. “Pete. That’s not what I meant and you know it. I just want to spend time with you. Can we even just hang out here?” Pete makes a face, but it’s not as bad as Mikey was expecting. He crosses the room from where he was standing and sits down on the edge of the sofa. It’s the space where Pete’s feet are and Pete lets Mikey move them and put them in his lap.

“We’re hanging out now.”  
“Well, that’s a start.” 

Pete is quiet for a while and he shifts a bit so that his feet are more comfortable in Mikey’s lap, and Mikey rubs his thumb over the curve of Pete’s ankle. It’s the most calm that Pete has been all week and Mikey’s glad. “I’ll try to get some stuff organised so that we can do stuff together soon,” Pete says. “It’s just a lot at the moment.”

“I know.” Mikey runs his palm up Pete’s calf muscle and then back down his shin.  
“You should go do stuff. Go shopping or something. We have another thing to go to next week if you want to pick up something for us to wear. I can meet you after the meeting.”

Mikey makes a face without meaning to and Pete catches him. 

“What now?” Pete snaps.  
“It’s just the last few times I went shopping on my own, I had a photographer following me.”  
“Just ignore them,” Pete says. Mikey knows he’s right, but it also put him off a bit. He knows it’s something he just has to get used to, but he’s not ready yet.  
“Between that and the internet...” Mikey trails off. That has nothing to do with a photographer or missing Pete and more to do with getting it all off his chest now that he’s started.  
“What about the internet?” Pete’s tone reads as completely fed up and he pulls his feet out of Mikey’s hands and off his lap hard enough to show that he’s not happy.  
“People say weird things sometimes. In comments and stuff,” Mikey says, and he knows he’s sounding like a child.  
“Then stop looking at the fucking comments, for god’s sake.”

Mikey closes his eyes and tries to gather some composure. He fails. “It’s hard at the moment.” What he wants to explain is that all of those little things, comments, nosy photographers, missing Pete were all less bad when he and Pete were getting _some_ quality time together, when it was them against the world. Now that they’re barely getting to see each other, it’s so much more difficult. At this very moment it doesn’t feel like they’re on the same team.

“It’s just part of the job,” Pete says dismissively, like Mikey should really know this by now.  
“This isn’t _my_ job though, Pete. My job is selling stuff to comic book geeks. Nerd stuff, remember? I’m out of my depth completely.”

Pete groans and throws his eyes up to the heavens, and any patience he might have had is obviously long gone. He shifts a little, restless, and then flops back against the sofa cushions, pointedly not looking at Mikey.

“I’m trying to fucking help you.” Pete sounds like he’s done, and Mikey’s stomach seizes up. He and Pete never fight properly, and this is awful.  
“You’re not. You’re being a jerk.”  
“I’m being a jerk?” He looks at Mikey wide eyed, like that’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. Mikey wants to fling a cushion at him.

“Yes, Pete. You are. I’ve been having a shitty week too, most of which I’ve spent on my own. I’m trying to talk to you, and you don’t have to tell me all the details of why things are so hard at the moment, but I’m here, okay? I just thought at least you might want to spend some time together today.” He’s not trying to one-up Pete’s bad week, or make him feel guilty for working so much, it’s not that at all. He’s just trying to level with him and then maybe they can get on with comforting each other like they should be doing instead of arguing.

Pete is quiet for a long moment, just staring at the end table and turning his phone over and over again in his hand. When he speaks, his voice is quiet and he still doesn’t look at Mikey. “If you hate it so much, why are you even here? Why don’t you go?”

If Mikey was thinking rationally, he’d know that Pete’s exhausted and stressed and just lashing out at the nearest available person. Not that that’s very nice, or fair, and somewhere in his head Mikey knows that Pete is not pissed at him, he’s just pissed. 

But Mikey’s not thinking rationally, and he’s feeling hurt and neglected. He snaps. “What the fuck? Will I just go back to New Jersey then?” Pete’s frustration is contagious it seems.  
“Fucked if I care,” Pete spits. “I’m going out.”

Mikey feels sick. They've never really fought any more than minor disagreements before, though maybe it's because their time together is either diluted by distance or concentrated when they finally get to spend time together. Coming to LA was supposed to be different for them. So far it has been amazing, but tough at times. This makes it feel tougher than he could have imagined.

He watches with his mouth hanging open as Pete shoves his feet into his sneakers and grabs his car keys without even a backward glance. Pete slams the door and after a few minutes, Mikey can hear the engine of his car roar up. 

Mikey didn’t think he’d go. He assumed that Pete was just having a tantrum, but this is weird and it’s really awful to be on the receiving end of Pete’s temper. He allows himself fifteen solid minutes to cry and freak out and throw a cushion across the room – the one that he wanted to throw at Pete’s head to make him stop being a jerk – and then decides that if Pete can walk out, so can he. He knows it’s a rash decision but he doesn’t want to be here when Pete gets back, and he has nowhere else to go but back to Jersey.

He doesn’t think too much about it, just lets autopilot take over as he grabs whatever of his belongings he can find and calls a cab to take him to LAX.

His head is spinning the entire time in the cab, and Mikey doesn’t usually get travel sick but he feels sick to his stomach for every second of it. He fights the urge to tell the driver to pull over so that he can vomit, willing his body to make it there in one piece.

There’s no immediate flight back home, he has to go on standby. He waits three hours staring blankly at nothing in particular, willing himself not to cry and have a meltdown in the airport. He drinks coffee after coffee at the same fucking table that he and Pete sat at the last time he flew home from LA because it’s the only free table and isn’t that just fucking wonderful, he thinks. 

Finally he gets called for a flight due to a cancellation and he can board but the whole time he’s wondering what the fuck he’s doing and he should just turn around and go back to Pete and try to figure this whole mess out, but his body and his mind are not cooperating with each other and the next thing he knows he’s stowing his baggage in the overhead locker and buckling his seatbelt.

He never takes his phone out of his hand the entire time, hoping that he’ll either chicken out of flying and call Pete to come pick him up, or Pete will call him and apologise. Just before the air stewardess tells him to turn off all electronic devices, he receives a text from Pete, and it must mean that he’s back at the house and has found it empty. 

The text reads _I do care. Please come back._

Mikey stares at the text and feels tears prickle at the backs of his eyes but he blinks them back and gives a weak smile to the stewardess who tells him that he absolutely has to turn off his phone now. He switches it off without replying to Pete.

He feels it might be too late. He’s hurt and ashamed; hurt that Pete would act like such an asshole to him, and ashamed that he panicked and ran away after a single fight, even if it was a bad one.

The flight passes in a blur and he doesn’t remembers anything other than wishing he had cell phone reception to reply to Pete, and then changing his mind and repeatedly thinking ‘fuck him’, and then changing it back again to wanting to apologise to Pete for bolting.

In the end, when he lands all he can think of is how vicious Pete’s tone was when he left. He replies to Pete with _back in NJ_. 

Pete doesn’t respond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dot dot dot


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am eternally to [Immoral Crow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/pseuds/immoral_crow) for so much help, and for making my ending better. All inadequacies and post-beta fucking around are mine :)
> 
> Thank you to anyone who has been following this. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

Mikey shows up on Gerard’s doorstep when he lands in Jersey, and Gerard must see the pain on Mikey’s face because he doesn’t say anything. He pulls him in for an awkward big-brother hug and Mikey has to use any strength he has left to keep himself together. 

"You wanna talk about it?”  
“No. No, not yet.”  
“When you want to talk about it, let me know,” Gerard says, and Mikey is so glad that he doesn’t push it. It makes Mikey want to cry again.  
“I will. But I can’t.” He feels himself welling up so he just turns away and blinks the tears back. If he starts crying again, he may not stop.

Lindsay is sweet and fusses over him without saying a word about Pete or Mikey’s flight. She makes small talk about noisy neighbours and a documentary she saw on television, and Mikey knows it’s all to keep the mood light and keep him distracted until he feels like talking. He knows they’re just trying to look after him a little, and then a grilled cheese sandwich and a soda appear in front of him and he’s even more grateful; he hasn’t eaten a thing since those pancakes with Pete this morning. Gerard doesn’t ask what happened or try to pry again either, and Mikey’s relieved because if he starts talking he’s going to lose it. 

It’s late in the evening and Mikey can’t face going back to his empty apartment right now so he stays in Gerard’s spare room. He barely sleeps, his mind only finally shutting down from pure exhaustion and when he wakes up it’s still dark out. He still doesn’t want to talk about it or even think about it because he knows he’s going to realise what a fucking mess this is when it didn’t need to be.

He spends the day hanging around Gerard’s place with Gerard and Lindsay as they tread carefully around him. Mostly he’s just beating himself up, still not ready to talk it out, either with Gerard, or more importantly, with Pete. 

Eventually he goes back to his own apartment, asking Frank to drop Venom back over so that he has company.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Frank asks.  
“No.”  
“What happened?” Frank asks, ignoring him.  
“It got fucked up.”  
“But what happened?”  
“I don’t fucking know,” Mikey says quietly. It just got fucked up.  
“Well, when you want to talk-”  
“I know,” Mikey says a little too forcefully. Frank gives him a tight smile. “Thanks.”

“Venom was an angel while you were gone. An evil angel,” Frank says, thankfully changing the subject. He opens the door of the cat-carrier and Venom slinks out. She makes her way around the living room and jumps up on Mikey’s lap. He’s so fucking pleased to see her and scritches under her chin with both hands until she’s purring like a small, fluffy lawnmower.

“I missed you, cat.”  
“I think she missed you too, though she fit in really well in our house. She had all of the dogs bowing to her will.”

Frank leaves after a little while, and only after Mikey promises to meet him for something to eat the next night. Mikey knows Frank is keeping an eye on him and it’s nice to be reminded he has such good friends.

Everyone is sympathetic towards Mikey, and they’re walking on eggshells around him. As much as they’re all there for him, he can feel there’s a hint of ‘it was inevitable’ behind their arm touches and sympathetic head tilts. 

He doesn’t want sympathy even if his friends mean well. He wants this to not have happened. He wants Pete back.

Mikey goes back to work the next day, needing some familiarity and something to do. When he’s at home he just ends up staring at his phone wishing it would ring, writing aborted text messages to Pete, or crying. It’s not doing him any good. Being at the store is actually a great distraction and he throws himself back into it. It’s changed a little since he left and there’s tons of new stock to learn and lots of titles to catch up on. He also likes that Gerard is there to keep him company. He sets himself the task of rearranging an entire wall of graphic novels so that he can keep focussed on anything but replaying that fight with Pete over and over and over like he’s caught in a loop.

He’s doing really well at distracting himself until a girl in a Fall Out Boy t-shirt buys a stack of new releases. She stares at him wide-eyed – and Mikey wonders if she knows who he is or if he’s imagining it – and Mikey can’t handle it, taking refuge in the back room for a few minutes to steady himself. 

Seeing someone wearing a shirt like that used to make him smile and feel all gooey inside that someone cared enough about Pete to wear it, but now it’s a harsh reminder that he and Pete are – he doesn’t know what he and Pete are now. When he thinks about it his head hurts, but he’s sure that unless one of them breaks their silence soon, there will be nothing left to salvage, and he’s not sure if Pete even wants to.

Maybe it was all inevitable, though. Even before his first date, his pessimistic side had assumed it would probably never work out with Pete, and that his life was far too different to a fucking _rockstar’s_. 

Maybe he should have listened to his gut, then he wouldn’t be nursing a broken heart. But then he wouldn’t have fallen in love either.

Several more days go by and it’s radio silence on both ends. Mikey checks Pete’s twitter a bunch of times, partly out of habit, partly because it always gave him a little bit of insight into Pete’s world. There’s nothing whatsoever about his personal life or how he’s feeling – not that Mikey really thought there would be a heartfelt diary entry on how he’s been a jerk and wants Mikey back – just comments on food, fan art, or Fall Out Boy related things. All of Pete’s other social media are the same; just posts about day to day stuff and he hasn’t once posted a photograph of himself. It’s unlike Pete, and Mikey really wishes he could see Pete’s face. If Pete is hurting as much as Mikey is, he’s not giving anything away, no matter how much Mikey tries to read between the lines.

Mikey stops looking. He feels pathetic, like he’s stalking his ex, because if feels like that’s what Pete is now. 

Gerard tries to comfort him and also be the voice of reason. He knows Mikey well enough to see that he’s hurting but that he wants to fix things between him and Pete.

“Are you sure you’re not just being stubborn? Can you call him?” Gerard asks. His tone is tentative but pleading.  
“No.”  
“Why not? Mikes, I can see how much you’re hurting, and if there’s any way that you guys can fix this, isn’t it worth trying?”  
“It’s been days and days and he didn’t even reply to my last text,” Mikey says sadly.  
“Maybe he didn’t get it. Maybe he’s freaking out as hard as you. You don’t know the full story.”  
Mikey says nothing.  
“Do you know how you get the full story?”  
“How?” Maybe there’s a magical solution Mikey hasn’t thought of.  
“You call him.” 

Oh. Mikey really wants to. He wants to hear Pete’s voice, and not just in a stupid sound bite or on YouTube. But he keeps remembering Pete’s vicious _fucked if I care_ , and the fact that Pete hasn’t called either. “I just. I can’t.” 

But yes, when Mikey racks his brains and runs through all of the information a hundred more times he thinks there’s a possibility he’s being stubborn. Maybe he should stop being so stubborn and just call Pete.

He takes a walk on his lunch break, not wanting to be cooped up in the little back room of the store. He wanders the streets nearby and sees a new little German restaurant that’s opened since he left Jersey. His heart clenches up when he sees a kid sitting in the window tucking into what looks suspiciously like Spaghetti Eis. He remembers Pete’s huge grin and little gleeful squeal when they had ordered it in Dusseldorf and he can almost taste Pete’s ice cream flavoured lips on his. It makes him realise that he undoubtedly does want to call him to talk to him, or maybe even take the next flight back to LA and show up on his doorstep. He doesn’t know how to initiate it after walking out, though. Deep down he knows this would have been a row that was fixable if he hadn’t run away and now it’s much larger than it ever needed to be. 

He gets through the rest of his day spending any available energy thinking what he’s going to say to Pete and where he might start. He comes home from work, begging off pizza with Ray, not in the mood to be sociable, even if he probably needs the company. He makes himself some food but pushes it around the plate, unable to concentrate on anything other than the words he wants to say to Pete. 

So far he’s pulled Pete’s number up on his phone six times, and each time he’s let his finger hover the _call_ button before chickening out again.

Mikey’s phone buzzes, startling him, and it’s a text from Frank. _check twitter asap_. Mikey does as he’s told, and his stomach bubbles up with what could be excitement, or maybe fear. He’s no idea what he’s about to see, and maybe he should have checked with Frank _why_ he’s looking on twitter before doing so, but whatever.

When he scrolls down his timeline his breath catches and his eyes go wide when he sees what Pete uploaded fifty-six minutes ago.

The photograph is of Pete sitting on Mikey’s couch with Venom on his lap, and she’s looking up at him. Mikey remembers when Pete took that photograph. He was sitting right beside Pete at the time, but in this version he’s been mostly cropped out of it with just his arm and shoulder visible on screen. Mikey also knows that there were several photographs following that one where Pete kissed Mikey on the cheek and then the lips and tried to hold the camera while continuing to take pictures. Mikey had squirmed and laughed enough that Venom jumped off Pete’s lap for her own protection. Most of them were blurry, but Mikey loves those pictures.

The caption on this photo reads _I miss my friend_.

After almost a week with no contact whatsoever, it’s a strange way for Pete to break the silence. Though maybe the point is so that they can open up some dialogue instead of both acting like stupid stubborn children, but there’s also something very _Pete_ about it. He doesn’t like to do things by halves.

Mikey looks at his screen again and studies Pete’s face in it, rubbing his thumb over Pete’s pixilated cheekbone on the screen. He sees the wide toothy grin and those little crinkles around his eyes that Mikey loves so much. Pete looks happy, and Mikey remembers when he took that picture, and he was happy too then. Venom looks pleased as anything as well, but she has her two humans petting her. Why wouldn’t she be happy?

The picture hurts his heart in the way it was always going to. He takes it as Pete’s ham-fisted and brash attempt to get his attention enough that they can talk. It’s a gesture. He hasn’t tagged Mikey in it, and he’s grateful. It’s just for Mikey because no one else is going to know the context.

While he assumes it’s not meant as manipulative, it’s very fucking hard to ignore. He misses him too, absolutely misses him with everything he’s got. He wants to talk with Pete, to apologise, to beg him to come see him, yell at him for being a dickhead, to kiss him and never let him go again.

He thinks of how Pete communicated with him, and specifically the use of the picture. It’s Pete and Venom, but Mikey’s arm is in it too, so he’s included but not being publicly paraded. 

Mikey’s heart hurts, but he has an idea.

He takes a photograph of Venom sleeping and she looks sweet on the screen, a curled up ball of grey and black fluff. It’s a cute image, but it’s not really what he is trying to convey. Then he rethinks his idea. He scoops his hand under her fluffy tummy and picks her up, much to her annoyance. “Sorry, girl. You need to help me. I’ll give you tuna.”

She flails a bit when he puts her down on his lap but settles when he scratches the back of her neck. He takes a deep breath and wonders what the hell he’s doing, but stretches his arm out in front of him to take a picture of her, but one where he’s visible in it up as far as his chin.

He sighs and shakes his head. “Fuck it,” he mutters and quickly opens twitter. He uploads the picture and accompanies it with _she misses you too_ , then deletes that and types _your friend misses you too_ , wanting to make no mistake it’s him that misses Pete, that he’s not playing games pretending it’s just his cat. He hesitates and then tags Pete and hits the Tweet button before he can talk himself out of it.

Every minute feels like an hour while he waits and hopes and waits and hopes for something to happen, whether it’s a reply from Pete or some extra bravery to fucking call him. His clock says only four minutes have passed though, when Pete replies with a series of little red hearts. Mikey beams.

After that his notifications go batshit crazy with new ones popping up every second. He closes out of twitter entirely without looking at a single one. It’s safer that way. He can deal with all of that later. Or not. He really doesn’t care anymore.

He gives Venom a good cuddle for cooperating with his genius plan. He knows that he’s going to call Pete now, to actually talk it out, apologise for running away, and hope that they can work it out. He just has to work up the nerve to do it. Little red hearts on the internet are cute and fun, but he needs more than that to know that this is real. 

Venom purrs in his lap and curls into a ball again, content to make Mikey her new bed seeing as he moved her. He has Pete’s number on the screen, and he’s just about to call so that they can actually talk like Grown Ups, when Pete calls him first.

Mikey’s stomach does backflips as he answers.

“Hey, so if I was to show up in New Jersey would you maybe let me take you out?”  
“Pete-“  
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I really am. I’ve been an asshole. I don’t want to throw this away because I’m an idiot and can’t get over myself-“  
“Pete-“  
“ _Please,_ Mikey. When I came back you were gone, and I thought that you went back to Jersey because you were done with me, but you make me so fucking happy. I don’t give a shit about the rest. We can work all of that out. I’ll fucking move to Jersey if you want, I’ll work less. Whatever it takes. I just want you in my life. I’m sorry.”

Mikey sucks in a breath quietly. He wasn’t really expecting Pete to make the first move – either on the realms of the internet or in real life – but it means so much that he did. It really doesn’t matter though, he feels the same as Pete. Tears appear at the corners of his eyes as relief floods through him. 

He doesn’t need Pete to give up his band or his life for their relationship, he never wanted that. All Mikey wants is for them to build _their_ life together. It just got so fucked up somewhere along the way that they stopped communicating and lost sight of everything important.

“I’m sorry too,” Mikey says. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for running. We can figure all the rest out. I just got overwhelmed. It was too much. We have to be on the same team or it’s too much,” he pauses and then laughs a little. “And I knew you were an asshole but I fell in love with you anyway.”

“I love you too. I wish I’d called you sooner. Patrick said I was being a stubborn little shit.”  
Mikey laughs. “Yeah, Gee said something similar about me. And I wish I hadn’t left. I panicked.”

There’s a moment of silence where Mikey is just grinning and he has a feeling that Pete is smiling stupidly too. They have a lot to sort out when they see each other, but most of all Mikey just feels so relieved that they’re talking. He never wants this to happen again.

“So, you didn’t answer my question,” Pete says finally. “If I show up in New Jersey, will you let me take you out?”  
Mikey ducks his head and grins into the phone. “I dunno. Don’t you rockstars have busy lives?”  
“Told you I’m not a rockstar,” Pete says and there’s a smile in his voice that cuts right through Mikey. He’s missed it so much, missed Pete so much, and wants to make sure he doesn’t have to miss him again. “Rockstars get groupies and glory and glamour. I get a boyfriend I’d sell my right arm to be with right now, and to sit on the sofa, with his cat, and eat pizza ‘till we fall asleep.”

“Yeah, I’m not buying it. But come pick me up from work tomorrow and you can prove it.”  
“I can do one better,” Pete says. Mikey really wants to know what could possibly be better than that, but he doesn’t get to ask because his buzzer rings. 

“Hang on a sec, Pete.” Mikey couldn’t give a shit who’s at the door because he has Pete on the line and it’s all he’s wanted for the past five days, but he answers it anyway.

“Hello,” Mikey says into the buzzer.  
“Hey.” Mikey’s heart stops beating entirely, because it’s Pete’s voice on the intercom. He’s here. 

Mikey doesn’t respond, doesn’t think. He just presses the buzzer to let Pete in and tries to breathe as the seconds tick by. He opens his apartment door and when he looks into the corridor he sees Pete round the corner. Mikey tries to hide his smile or at least tone it down, but he can’t. He just grins and grins and he feels like he might burst. 

His heartbeat pulsing in his ears is all he can hear when he pulls Pete tight against him and Pete buries his head in the curve of Mikey’s neck and sobs. Neither of them move for a long time and Mikey wants nothing more than Pete’s solid warmth against him.

For the entire week he’s felt like his chest was in a vice, like he couldn’t quite breathe deeply enough. When Pete called him, it loosened. Now he feels like it’s fallen away completely.

“You’re a jerk,” Mikey finally says into Pete’s hair, but his tone is fond.  
“I know.” Pete kisses him and it’s not romantic or perfect like maybe a reconciling kiss should be. It’s just filled with the desperate need to hold each other close again. Mikey closes his eyes and kisses Pete with everything he’s got, tightening his hands in Pete’s jacket. “I’m sorry,” Pete whispers and kisses him again. “I’m fucking sorry.”  
“Me too.”

Eventually Mikey lets go of Pete enough that they can move from his hallway and sit in Mikey’s living room, though Pete squeezes Mikey’s hand like he can’t bear to let go of him completely.

It’s companionable silence for quite a while, neither of them needing to talk, just sharing little glances and a few little smiles. The way Mikey feels is a complete one-eighty from how he felt earlier. 

“What were you going to do if I didn’t see your twitter thing? Or if I wouldn’t talk to you?” Mikey says eventually.  
“My cunning plan only went as far as getting here. I would have ended up camping outside your building until you talked to me.”  
“Cunning,” Mikey says. Though Pete’s plan seems anything but cunning seeing as he didn’t even bring a bag with him.

“Hey, you look like shit,” Pete says, and Mikey can’t help but smile because he knows he’s looked rough since he left LA.  
“Yeah I know. My jerk boyfriend broke my heart last week.” Mikey takes a look at Pete’s dark eyes and ashen complexion. He looks like he hasn’t washed his hair in days so he probably hasn’t showered either. “You don’t look so hot yourself.”  
Pete nods. “S’true. At least no one wanted to sit beside me on the plane. I had the whole row to myself because I look homeless. I got half a dozen songs out of it, though. I write a lot when my heart is broken. Expect to hear about yourself on the new album, Mikeyway.”

“Every cloud.” Mikey’s mood is infinitely better than it was earlier today, but he knows that they will have a lot to sort out before everything is back to the way it was. “We have a lot to talk through.”  
“I know,” Pete says, and the deep brown eyes that Mikey fell for are so wide and sincere. “It got really tough for you didn’t it? I didn’t mean to push you away.”  
“It wasn’t just you though. I kept thinking it would all just go back to the way it was without trying to fix it. I kept pretending that things weren’t bothering me when they were.”  
“I’m sorry it ended up so rough-“  
“For the two of us,” Mikey finishes. He’s not going to let Pete take the full blame for this. They both have a lot to learn about communication, but he thinks after this it will be easier on both sides after as big a lesson as this has been. “We have to be a team.”  
Pete nods enthusiastically and Mikey feels like they’re back on the same page after days of agony. He smiles and kisses Pete on the forehead, just because he can.

“So will you let me take you out again, Mikes?” Pete says. He rests his head on Mikey’s shoulder and he looks exhausted, his eyes barely open. But for the first time in weeks he looks happy and relaxed.  
Mikey pets his hair. “Sleep first.”  
“And then you’ll let me take you out?”  
“No, after that I need to get your clothes off.” Pete raises an eyebrow, so Mikey clarifies, “To put you in the shower so that you don’t look quite so homeless. Even for a rockstar you’re pushing the _rough around the edges_ look.”  
“After that?”  
“After that I’ll order us a pizza.”  
“Mikey.” Pete is smiling, but his tone is edging towards pleading. “We’re back together, right?”

Mikey doesn’t really blame Pete for needing the exact words to be said. Maybe they both do. 

“Yeah. We are,” Mikey says, and kisses Pete’s temple. “Sweet Little Dudes forever.”

 

EPILOGUE  
“We don’t have time, Pete,” Mikey says. Pete is busy with his hands under Mikey’s shirt and his mouth moving slowly on Mikey’s neck. Mikey’s only half protesting though, because what Pete is doing feels so good.  
“We do.” 

Mikey catches him in a kiss and wraps his arms around Pete’s waist. Even if they don’t have time for what Pete has planned, some kissing won’t delay them too long. They’re packed and ready to leave for the airport except for actually dressing and showering. Pete is heading off to Europe on tour for close to a month, with Mikey going with him for the entire thing this time. They’re even getting to visit Jersey for a whole day on the way. 

“We don’t. You said the car comes for us at two, and I don’t want it to be like last time when you were still naked when we were supposed to be ready to go.” 

Pete walks Mikey backwards, kissing him and nuzzling at his jaw until Mikey hits the edge of their bed and he sits with Pete standing in the vee of his legs. Mikey runs his hands up and down Pete’s bare back – because Pete often wears next to nothing whenever they’re home alone, and definitely if they’re packing – and he’s almost eyelevel with Pete’s dick, which he can tell through Pete’s pyjama pants is half hard already. He slides his hands down to cup Pete’s ass, as firm and distractingly perky as ever, and gives it a little squeeze.

“Yeah,” Pete says, pushing Mikey onto his back and crawling over him. “I totally lied. It’s coming at three. I wanted to have enough time for us to fool around before we go.”

“Sneaky,” Mikey laughs. Pete has been very good at allocating time that’s just for them, especially when things around them are about to get crazy busy, even if it has to be scheduled sometimes. Organised fucking is not as un-sexy as it sounds. Mikey pulls Pete down and kisses him, open mouthed and dirty, and the temperature goes up by about fifty degrees.

“Come on. Fuck me hard, we don’t get to do it in a big bed for at least a week,” Pete murmurs into Mikey’s neck. He finishes his sentence by rubbing his palm firmly over Mikey’s crotch, and yeah okay, Mikey can’t say no when it feels that good. 

“We still have to be quick.” Not that that should be a problem; over the last year they’ve learned the fine art of quickies, and in discreet places like tour buses, backstage, and once in a closet of the recording studio when he went to visit Pete, so in a bed is no problem.  
“Yeah, I know,” Pete smirks, pulling at Mikey’s shirt, and then Mikey gets his hands into Pete’s pyjamas so that he can actually get on with their scheduled love-making.

Afterwards, Mikey’s vaguely aware that they should be hurrying to get dressed, but he’s a bit too relaxed and orgasm-happy to care. He thinks for a second, and then reaches over and grabs his phone. He snaps a picture of him and Pete from above, showing just their faces and bare shoulders and then uploads it to the internet, captioning it with _New Jersey bound._

Pete gives him a look and then a little smile. “I’ve created a monster,” he says, and that’s probably true. Social media seems a bit more fun to Mikey these days after he eventually learned not to look at the awful stuff. He updates semi regularly and sometimes with things that Pete won’t, like how adorable and romantic Pete is. He’s also learning the delicate art of bragging when his life is awesome. 

“Did you pack that navy shirt?” Pete asks, and that’s Mikey’s favourite thing about them travelling together, twice as many clothes to choose from because they share all their clothes anyway.  
“Yep. Did you pack the European adaptor for your phone? And the one for the laptop too?”  
“Of course. I figured you wouldn’t forgive me if I forgot again after last time. You weren’t too happy when I complained for almost a whole day about not being able to update twitter about having no charger.” Pete turns on his side and props himself up on one elbow. “Gabe is coming over this evening to pick up Venom. She’ll probably hate it and hide under the bed so he can’t find her, she usually does, but staying with him is better than putting her into a cattery, or cat kennels, or whatever it’s called.”

“Kennels I think? The same as dog kennels,” Mikey says, and smiles too because he keeps forgetting that he and Pete are friends with _Gabe, the guy from Midtown._ Sometimes Mikey forgets how different his life is now that he’s permanently in LA until Pete says something as strangely normal as that.

Pete looks wistful for a second, like he’s far away, but his thumb strokes slowly over Mikey’s knuckles and then he looks at Mikey for another long minute. “You want to get a dog together when we get back?”

“We have a cat.” 

Pete’s question takes Mikey a little by surprise, but in a good way. As if on cue, Venom pads into their bedroom and hops up on the bed, standing all with four paws on Mikey’s bare chest, looking to be petted. Mikey knows she’s aware they’re going away. Ever since he moved her here she always knows.

“Yeah but she’s yours. A dog would be ours. I mean, Venom is awesome and everything, and she’s my homegirl, but I’ve always been a dog person.”

Mikey covers Venom’s fluffy ears with his hands and looks mock-horrified. “Don’t let her hear you say that or she’ll use that really expensive cashmere sweater of yours as a blanket.”  
“She already does that. Don’t you, you evil little genius?” Pete scratches under Venom’s chin and she purrs heavily. “But what do you say about getting a dog?”  
“A dog is a big responsibility. They live for a long time. Are you saying you want me around for the rest of your life?” That’s probably a loaded question that Mikey should be more cautious of asking, but it feels right.  
“Well, dogs live for, like, fifteen years so I want you in my life for at least that long. I’ll see after that,” Pete grins, but slips his hand into Mikey’s.

Mikey flicks him on the ear. “Romantic.”

“That’s me, Mikeyway. But yeah, I totally want you to stick around.” Pete leans over and kisses him, slow and sweet and Mikey’s heart swells like a balloon in his chest. “What do you think?”  
“Yeah it can come hang out with me in Killjoys 2 when it opens next month. I’ll promote it to Assistant Manager.”  
“I thought I was going to be Assistant Manager?” Pete pouts and looks adorable.  
“No, you’re Executive in Charge of Looking Cute and Reading all the Comics.”  
“Awesome job title. I’m putting that on my Resumé.”  
“You should,” Mikey says and gives him a little smile. “But as long as the new dog doesn’t traumatize Venom, I’m in.”

Pete grins and squeezes Mikey’s hand. “You know that our ride will be here in, like, fifteen minutes now and we are neither dressed nor clean enough to get on a cross-country flight to see your brother? Race you to the shower?”

Mikey kisses Pete on the cheek and then scrambles over him, towards the bathroom. “You’re on.”

THE END


End file.
